Good Opening Books for Arena

Hi All,

I installed Arena and the best free engines around (the likes of Houdini, Stockfish, Critter, Bouquet, IvanHoe and Strelka). Now I am planning to add some decent opening books, preferably in abk.format. I read somewhere that there is a work-around for other formats like bin and ctg, to make them compatible with Arena, but I'm not sure where I read it and how to do such precisely.

So basically my first question is which abk.books I should definitely pick. Can anyone make me a suggestion within a list of 5?

Some sites I found are these:

http://chesshilton.blogspot.be/p/opening-books-abk-format-25.html

http://www.autochess.com/forum/opening-books-abk-format-t923-45.html

http://www.chess2u.com/t1107-opennig-book-abk

http://yetanotherchessforum.ativiforum.com/f3-abk-opening-books

https://sites.google.com/site/teambrchess/playlist---books

for the former site, one needs a log-in, but I'm still waiting for approval

Apparently some contests are held to decide on the best books around in a shared engine, different opening book battle e.g.: http://www.raitpref.ru/ct-arena-file.htm

Thus, so far I consider to get Fauzi_2.2.abk, TriA+JK 1.6.1L+.abk, King-fighter.abk, planetgaia5.5e_mainbook.abk

I'm not certain about my selection though. Fauzi and TriA seem keepers to me, but the rest is open to debate.

This brings me back to my first question of course about 5 suggestions.

Related to this I have another question. Are there any books in bin. or ctg.format worth considering? And if that's the case, how can I convert them to abk.format or get a work-around? I noticed a gambit-book and Nc6 on the team Brazil page, which I would like to have for instance.

Any advise would be welcome.

Thank you in advance.

Well, if you can use bin files, you can make your own custom book(s) using the polyglot software here :

http://www.chess.com/download/view/create-polyglot-opening-books-for-chessanalyse

@ John -I like qualitychess books because in fact that is what this publisher offers (one look in my chesscupboard will confirm my fondness). I thought I didn't know about mongoose press but in fact I was going through to the hedgehog books at Marchand -the store I told you about- the other day. So thanks for the links! Much appreciated.

What I'm trying to reach for this little project though is setting up a free GUI (graphical user interface -check out http://www.playwitharena.com/) with the most powerful free chess engines programs around. Contributing to their strength are endgame-tables, which I want to add later on as well, and opening books in coded format, either bin, ctg, abk... Such are the books I'm looking for now. Some enthusiasts and volunteers have compiled their own books based on careful selection through datalists of games or manually added their own lines. Books written in abk.format are books specifically designed to work with Arena.

Cheers!

@ rooperi -Thank you for the link you provided. Might proof useful, when I start creating my own book, which I undoubtedly will one day. At that time I will be uploading and selecting pgn-files myself.

As for the moment I'm rather lazy/busy (depending on the way I swing my hat) and I'm trying to decide on quality of the already existing books in abk format in the first place and which books in bin or ctg format are of such quality that I should definitely integrate them into the package.

I believe it should be possible for the engines to use multiple openingbooks at the same time or in someway combining them depending on evaluation.

I should try to contact eliasgino2007 -the one who has been compiling the list on https://sites.google.com/site/teambrchess/playlist---books and inquire about his opinion perhaps, which are the best ones around?

On http://www.autochess.com/forum/opening-books-bin-format-t1331-180.html I found a description of how to use bin. and ctg.books in the Arena GUI. I checked further based on the info on that site and then I stumble on this http://rybkachess.com/index.php?auswahl=Book+Adapter and this http://rybkaforum.net/cgi-bin/rybkaforum/topic_show.pl?pid=179436.

In the future this could prove useful, when I get to the stage of using other books than abk format. Maybe others might find it useful too.

tomcat is a good opening book >

http://www.chess.com/download/view/tomcat-opening-for-arena-march-2012

HIARCS offers a free opening book in abk format:

http://www.hiarcs.com/chess-opening-book-free.htm

I use Arena Chess 3.5 and just today (2/12/2014) I learned about using opening books with it.  I was able to get the free Hiracs Lite free opening book and set Arena to using it.  However, the Fauzi book appears to have no valid download sites.  Instead, I found an abk book file that appears to be better than the free Hiracs Lite book.  It is the SuperBook created by Dann Corbit.  The SuperBook has a book depth of 100 half moves.  Page link to it here:

http://www.playwitharena.com/?User_Files%2C_Engines:Opening_Books_%2821%29%26nbsp%3B

Hope this helps, I have been a chess patzer (beginner) for many years.

What's the latest edition (year date) of Dan Corbit's Superbook in "abk" format ?