Banksia GUI released

[Gabor Szots]

Banksiagui is far better than Fritz 18, Cutechess and Arena on tournament management

I wonder. Apart from concurrency, Arena can do everything and in a very user-friendly manner. What can Banksia do what Arena cannot?

Around 1000 things.
Try it.

Please list just 5. Try it.

[Uri Blass]

I wonder if it is possible to add engines to a round robin tournament after I already started it.
I can make a gauntlet of another engine against the engines in the tournament and add the games but it is additional work and if it is a gauntlet of some engines then it does not add the games between them.

Yes, you can using Tournaments -> Actions -> Edit current tournament [choose engine to add] Add games button. Banksiagui is far better than Fritz 18, Cutechess and Arena on tournament management


Another question is if it is possible to remove engine from a tournament that means removing all the games of it but not removing games it did not play.

No

I had crashes when I tried to use concurrency more than 1 for a tournament with many games so I choose convurrency 1 for a long tournament(I guess it is a problem when there are many games and the games take few seconds so the main effort of the computer is to write the games into a file and not to play them)

Probably if I use slower time control then the risk of crash of the interface (when concurrency is bigger than 1) is smaller and the advantage in saving computer time is bigger(note that I use fixed nodes per move so no problem of losing on time).

Thanks.

I did not know how to do it so practically I made a round robin tournament and added later gauntlets to have a pgn of round robin tournament with more games(I used chessbase to make a union of 2 pgn because I can use chessbase to copy all the games of one file and append them to another pgn file).

The question is if I can tell banskia to treat the pgn as a round robin tournament and add engines for it or not

My result using ordo to get a rating list from the pgn for fixed nodes is now at the bottom of this post.
I try to make a list when everybody play everybody with both sides and it may be interesting to see if deleting part of the games when the rating difference is more rhan x elo change the rating and to what direction

I defined by default to have
Stash v35.0 512 nodes with rating 1000.

Code: Select all

   # PLAYER                           :  RATING  POINTS  PLAYED   (%)
   1 Stockfish 16.1 262144 nodes      :  3595.7   196.5     200    98
   2 Stockfish 16.1 131072 nodes      :  3407.0   191.0     200    96
   3 Berserk 13 262144 nodes          :  3326.2   187.5     200    94
   4 Stockfish 16.1 65536 nodes       :  3286.3   185.5     200    93
   5 Berserk 13 131072 nodes          :  3258.4   184.0     200    92
   6 Stockfish 16.1 32768nodes        :  3223.3   182.0     200    91
   7 Seer 2.8.0 262144 nodes          :  3214.9   181.5     200    91
   8 Alexandria-6.1.0 262144 nodes    :  3214.9   181.5     200    91
   9 Alexandria-6.1.0 131072 nodes    :  3190.2   180.0     200    90
  10 Seer 2.8.0 131072 nodes          :  3182.2   179.5     200    90
  11 Berserk 13 65536 nodes           :  3113.2   175.0     200    88
  12 Alexandria-6.1.0 65536 nodes     :  3105.9   174.5     200    87
  13 Stockfish 16.1 16384nodes        :  3091.4   173.5     200    87
  14 Altair 7.0.0 262144 nodes        :  3091.4   173.5     200    87
  15 Seer 2.8.0 65536 nodes           :  3041.9   170.0     200    85
  16 Berserk 13 32768 nodes           :  3028.0   169.0     200    85
  17 Altair 7.0.0 131072 nodes        :  3021.2   168.5     200    84
  18 Stockfish 11 262144 nodes        :  3021.2   168.5     200    84
  19 Stockfish 16.1 8192nodes         :  2947.4   163.0     200    82
  20 Seer 2.8.0 32768 nodes           :  2940.8   162.5     200    81
  21 Stockfish 11 131072 nodes        :  2882.4   158.0     200    79
  22 Altair 7.0.0 65536 nodes         :  2850.6   155.5     200    78
  23 Alexandria-6.1.0 32768 nodes     :  2850.6   155.5     200    78
  24 Berserk 13 16384 nodes           :  2825.3   153.5     200    77
  25 Stockfish 11 65536 nodes         :  2769.4   149.0     200    75
  26 Stash v35.0 262144 nodes         :  2738.8   146.5     200    73
  27 Alexandria-6.1.0 16384 nodes     :  2702.4   143.5     200    72
  28 Stash v35.0 131072 nodes         :  2696.4   143.0     200    72
  29 Altair 7.0.0 32768 nodes         :  2696.4   143.0     200    72
  30 Seer 2.8.0 16384 nodes           :  2690.4   142.5     200    71
  31 Stockfish 16.1 4096nodes         :  2654.6   139.5     200    70
  32 Berserk 13 8192 nodes            :  2601.6   135.0     200    68
  33 Altair 7.0.0 16384 nodes         :  2601.6   135.0     200    68
  34 Seer 2.8.0 8192 nodes            :  2601.6   135.0     200    68
  35 Stash v35.0 65536 nodes          :  2595.7   134.5     200    67
  36 Alexandria-6.1.0 8192 nodes      :  2566.7   132.0     200    66
  37 Stockfish 11 32768 nodes         :  2543.7   130.0     200    65
  38 Blunder 8.5.5 262144  nodes      :  2453.1   122.0     200    61
  39 Altair 7.0.0 8192 nodes          :  2430.9   120.0     200    60
  40 Stockfish 16.1 2048nodes         :  2419.8   119.0     200    60
  41 Stash v35.0 32768 nodes          :  2403.4   117.5     200    59
  42 Seer 2.8.0 4096 nodes            :  2376.1   115.0     200    58
  43 Stockfish 11 16384 nodes         :  2349.1   112.5     200    56
  44 Movei00_8_438 262144 nodes       :  2338.4   111.5     200    56
  45 Alexandria-6.1.0 4096 nodes      :  2322.4   110.0     200    55
  46 Berserk 13 4096 nodes            :  2306.5   108.5     200    54
  47 Blunder 8.5.5 131072  nodes      :  2290.7   107.0     200    54
  48 Altair 7.0.0 4096 nodes          :  2259.3   104.0     200    52
  49 Fridolin 4.00 262144 nodes       :  2238.6   102.0     200    51
  50 Stash v35.0 16384 nodes          :  2218.0   100.0     200    50
  51 Blunder 8.5.5 65536  nodes       :  2197.6    98.0     200    49
  52 Stockfish 16.1 1024nodes         :  2187.4    97.0     200    49
  53 Fridolin 4.00 131072 nodes       :  2182.4    96.5     200    48
  54 Movei00_8_438 131072 nodes       :  2177.3    96.0     200    48
  55 Alexandria-6.1.0 2048 nodes      :  2067.3    85.0     200    43
  56 Movei00_8_438 32768 nodes        :  2057.4    84.0     200    42
  57 Movei00_8_438 65536 nodes        :  2052.4    83.5     200    42
  58 Stockfish 11 8192 nodes          :  2042.5    82.5     200    41
  59 Seer 2.8.0 2048 nodes            :  2037.6    82.0     200    41
  60 Fridolin 4.00 65536 nodes        :  2037.6    82.0     200    41
  61 Altair 7.0.0 2048 nodes          :  2022.8    80.5     200    40
  62 Berserk 13 2048 nodes            :  2022.8    80.5     200    40
  63 Blunder 8.5.5 32768  nodes       :  1963.4    74.5     200    37
  64 Altair 7.0.0 1024 nodes          :  1943.5    72.5     200    36
  65 Stockfish 11 4096 nodes          :  1938.5    72.0     200    36
  66 Stash v35.0 8192 nodes           :  1938.5    72.0     200    36
  67 Fridolin 4.00 32768 nodes        :  1923.5    70.5     200    35
  68 Blunder 8.5.5 16384  nodes       :  1913.5    69.5     200    35
  69 Altair 7.0.0 512 nodes           :  1903.4    68.5     200    34
  70 Alexandria-6.1.0 1024 nodes      :  1888.3    67.0     200    34
  71 Movei00_8_438 16384 nodes        :  1888.3    67.0     200    34
  72 Fridolin 4.00 16384 nodes        :  1842.3    62.5     200    31
  73 Berserk 13 1024 nodes            :  1789.9    57.5     200    29
  74 Stockfish 16.1 512 nodes         :  1768.4    55.5     200    28
  75 Movei00_8_438 8192 nodes         :  1757.6    54.5     200    27
  76 Stockfish 11 2048 nodes          :  1741.2    53.0     200    27
  77 Seer 2.8.0 1024 nodes            :  1735.7    52.5     200    26
  78 Alexandria-6.1.0 512 nodes       :  1719.0    51.0     200    26
  79 Blunder 8.5.5 8192  nodes        :  1719.0    51.0     200    26
  80 Fridolin 4.00 8192 nodes         :  1696.5    49.0     200    25
  81 Stash v35.0 4096 nodes           :  1667.7    46.5     200    23
  82 Movei00_8_438 4096 nodes         :  1583.0    39.5     200    20
  83 Berserk 13 512 nodes             :  1557.5    37.5     200    19
  84 Blunder 8.5.5 4096  nodes        :  1544.5    36.5     200    18
  85 Seer 2.8.0 512 nodes             :  1518.0    34.5     200    17
  86 Fridolin 4.00 4096 nodes         :  1504.5    33.5     200    17
  87 Blunder 8.5.5 2048  nodes        :  1476.8    31.5     200    16
  88 Stash v35.0 2048 nodes           :  1462.7    30.5     200    15
  89 Black Marlin 9.0 512 nodes       :  1448.3    29.5     200    15
  90 Stockfish 11 1024 nodes          :  1433.7    28.5     200    14
  91 Stockfish 11 512 nodes           :  1348.0    23.0     200    12
  92 Fridolin 4.00 2048 nodes         :  1348.0    23.0     200    12
  93 Movei00_8_438 2048 nodes         :  1305.6    20.5     200    10
  94 Blunder 8.5.5 512 nodes          :  1231.7    16.5     200     8
  95 Movei00_8_438 1024 nodes         :  1231.7    16.5     200     8
  96 Blunder 8.5.5 1024  nodes        :  1191.0    14.5     200     7
  97 Stash v35.0 1024 nodes           :  1169.5    13.5     200     7
  98 Movei00_8_438 512 nodes          :  1099.1    10.5     200     5
  99 Fridolin 4.00 1024 nodes         :  1000.0     7.0     200     4
 100 Stash v35.0 512 nodes            :  1000.0     7.0     200     4
 101 Fridolin 4.00 512 nodes          :   948.2     5.5     200     3

White advantage = 8.99
Draw rate (equal opponents) = 50.00 %

[AlexChess]

The question is if I can tell banskia to treat the pgn as a round robin tournament and add engines for it or not

My result using ordo to get a rating list from the pgn for fixed nodes is now at the bottom of this post.
I try to make a list when everybody play everybody with both sides and it may be interesting to see if deleting part of the games when the rating difference is more rhan x elo change the rating and to what direction

I defined by default to have
Stash v35.0 512 nodes with rating 1000.

On my tournaments, I simply add (or remove) engines from BanksiaGUI and then print the crosstable ordered by it with all the details. This part of BanksiaGui works very well since Pham fixed all my reports before stopping updating BSG being very busy on other things.

[Uri Blass]

a bug in the gauntlet results:
There are 236 games in the pgn that I downloaded but for some reason the table gives only 234 games and ignore the last 2 losses against obsidian 12 2048 nodes

The crosstable that is too big to post here simply write -- for the game between obsidian 1024 nodes and obsidian 12 2048 nodes

Code: Select all

Result:
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  #  name                           games    wins   draws  losses   score    elo    +    -
  1. Alexandria-6.1.0 2048 nodes        2       2       0       0     2.0    111  580  324
  2. Black Marlin 9.0 4096 nodes        2       2       0       0     2.0    111  580  324
  3. Fridolin 4.00 262144 nodes         2       2       0       0     2.0    111  580  324
  4. Seer 2.8.0 8192 nodes              2       2       0       0     2.0    111  580  324
  5. Alexandria-6.1.0 131072 nodes      2       2       0       0     2.0    111  580  324
  6. Alexandria-6.1.0 16384 nodes       2       2       0       0     2.0    111  580  324
  7. Stockfish 11 16384 nodes           2       2       0       0     2.0    111  580  324
  8. Berserk 13 32768 nodes             2       2       0       0     2.0    111  580  324
  9. Alexandria-6.1.0 262144 nodes      2       2       0       0     2.0    111  580  324
 10. Seer 2.8.0 16384 nodes             2       2       0       0     2.0    111  580  324
 11. Alexandria-6.1.0 8192 nodes        2       2       0       0     2.0    111  580  324
 12. Alexandria-6.1.0 32768 nodes       2       2       0       0     2.0    111  580  324
 13. Seer 2.8.0 32768 nodes             2       2       0       0     2.0    111  580  324
 14. Alexandria-6.1.0 4096 nodes        2       2       0       0     2.0    111  580  324
 15. Stockfish 11 8192 nodes            2       2       0       0     2.0    111  580  324
 16. Berserk 13 65536 nodes             2       2       0       0     2.0    111  580  324
 17. Seer 2.8.0 65536 nodes             2       2       0       0     2.0    111  580  324
 18. Altair 7.0.0 262144 nodes          2       2       0       0     2.0    111  580  324
 19. Alexandria-6.1.0 65536 nodes       2       2       0       0     2.0    111  580  324
 20. Altair 7.0.0 1024 nodes            2       2       0       0     2.0    111  580  324
 21. Seer 2.8.0 131072 nodes            2       2       0       0     2.0    111  580  324
 22. Blunder 8.5.5 8192  nodes          2       2       0       0     2.0    111  580  324
 23. Berserk 13 16384 nodes             2       2       0       0     2.0    111  580  324
 24. Altair 7.0.0 131072 nodes          2       2       0       0     2.0    111  580  324
 25. Altair 7.0.0 16384 nodes           2       2       0       0     2.0    111  580  324
 26. Altair 7.0.0 2048 nodes            2       2       0       0     2.0    111  580  324
 27. Seer 2.8.0 262144 nodes            2       2       0       0     2.0    111  580  324
 28. Altair 7.0.0 32768 nodes           2       2       0       0     2.0    111  580  324
 29. Black Marlin 9.0 2048 nodes        2       2       0       0     2.0    111  580  324
 30. Obsidian 12.0 4096 nodes           2       2       0       0     2.0    111  580  324
 31. Black Marlin 9.0 8192 nodes        2       2       0       0     2.0    111  580  324
 32. Black Marlin 9.0 16384 nodes       2       2       0       0     2.0    111  580  324
 33. Altair 7.0.0 512 nodes             2       2       0       0     2.0    111  580  324
 34. Altair 7.0.0 65536 nodes           2       2       0       0     2.0    111  580  324
 35. Altair 7.0.0 8192 nodes            2       2       0       0     2.0    111  580  324
 36. Berserk 13 131072 nodes            2       2       0       0     2.0    111  580  324
 37. Black Marlin 9.0 32768 nodes       2       2       0       0     2.0    111  580  324
 38. Blunder 8.5.5 65536  nodes         2       2       0       0     2.0    111  580  324
 39. Berserk 13 2048 nodes              2       2       0       0     2.0    111  580  324
 40. Movei00_8_438 32768 nodes          2       2       0       0     2.0    111  580  324
 41. Berserk 13 262144 nodes            2       2       0       0     2.0    111  580  324
 42. Stash v35.0 8192 nodes             2       2       0       0     2.0    111  580  324
 43. Berserk 13 4096 nodes              2       2       0       0     2.0    111  580  324
 44. Stockfish 11 131072 nodes          2       2       0       0     2.0    111  580  324
 45. Berserk 13 8192 nodes              2       2       0       0     2.0    111  580  324
 46. Stash v35.0 16384 nodes            2       2       0       0     2.0    111  580  324
 47. Black Marlin 9.0 65536 nodes       2       2       0       0     2.0    111  580  324
 48. Black Marlin 9.0 131072 nodes      2       2       0       0     2.0    111  580  324
 49. Black Marlin 9.0 262144 nodes      2       2       0       0     2.0    111  580  324
 50. Obsidian 12.0 262144 nodes         2       2       0       0     2.0    111  580  324
 51. Obsidian 12.0 131072 nodes         2       2       0       0     2.0    111  580  324
 52. Obsidian 12.0 65536 nodes          2       2       0       0     2.0    111  580  324
 53. Blunder 8.5.5 32768  nodes         2       2       0       0     2.0    111  580  324
 54. Obsidian 12.0 32768 nodes          2       2       0       0     2.0    111  580  324
 55. Movei00_8_438 131072 nodes         2       2       0       0     2.0    111  580  324
 56. Movei00_8_438 16384 nodes          2       2       0       0     2.0    111  580  324
 57. Obsidian 12.0 16384 nodes          2       2       0       0     2.0    111  580  324
 58. Obsidian 12.0 8192 nodes           2       2       0       0     2.0    111  580  324
 59. Movei00_8_438 262144 nodes         2       2       0       0     2.0    111  580  324
 60. Movei00_8_438 4096 nodes           2       2       0       0     2.0    111  580  324
 61. Stash v35.0 131072 nodes           2       2       0       0     2.0    111  580  324
 62. Stash v35.0 262144 nodes           2       2       0       0     2.0    111  580  324
 63. Stash v35.0 32768 nodes            2       2       0       0     2.0    111  580  324
 64. Stash v35.0 65536 nodes            2       2       0       0     2.0    111  580  324
 65. Seer 2.8.0 4096 nodes              2       2       0       0     2.0    111  580  324
 66. Stockfish 11 262144 nodes          2       2       0       0     2.0    111  580  324
 67. Stockfish 11 32768 nodes           2       2       0       0     2.0    111  580  324
 68. Stockfish 11 4096 nodes            2       2       0       0     2.0    111  580  324
 69. Stockfish 11 65536 nodes           2       2       0       0     2.0    111  580  324
 70. Stockfish 16.1 131072 nodes        2       2       0       0     2.0    111  580  324
 71. Stockfish 16.1 16384nodes          2       2       0       0     2.0    111  580  324
 72. Stockfish 16.1 2048nodes           2       2       0       0     2.0    111  580  324
 73. Stockfish 16.1 262144 nodes        2       2       0       0     2.0    111  580  324
 74. Stockfish 16.1 32768nodes          2       2       0       0     2.0    111  580  324
 75. Stockfish 16.1 4096nodes           2       2       0       0     2.0    111  580  324
 76. Seer 2.8.0 2048 nodes              2       2       0       0     2.0    111  580  324
 77. Stockfish 16.1 65536 nodes         2       2       0       0     2.0    111  580  324
 78. Stockfish 16.1 8192nodes           2       2       0       0     2.0    111  580  324
 79. Fridolin 4.00 32768 nodes          2       2       0       0     2.0    111  580  324
 80. Blunder 8.5.5 131072  nodes        2       1       1       0     1.5    -26  358  300
 81. Alexandria-6.1.0 1024 nodes        2       1       1       0     1.5    -36  359  303
 82. Obsidian 12.0 1024 nodes         234      53       6     175    56.0   -120   33   33
 83. Blunder 8.5.5 4096  nodes          2       1       0       1     1.0   -120  371  371
 84. Blunder 8.5.5 262144  nodes        2       1       0       1     1.0   -120  371  371
 85. Fridolin 4.00 65536 nodes          2       1       0       1     1.0   -120  366  366
 86. Stockfish 16.1 1024nodes           2       1       0       1     1.0   -120  366  366
 87. Stockfish 16.1 512 nodes           2       1       0       1     1.0   -120  366  366
 88. Stash v35.0 1024 nodes             2       1       0       1     1.0   -120  371  371
 89. Fridolin 4.00 131072 nodes         2       1       0       1     1.0   -120  366  366
 90. Movei00_8_438 65536 nodes          2       1       0       1     1.0   -120  371  371
 91. Altair 7.0.0 4096 nodes            2       1       0       1     1.0   -120  366  366
 92. Blunder 8.5.5 16384  nodes         2       1       0       1     1.0   -120  371  371
 93. Seer 2.8.0 512 nodes               2       1       0       1     1.0   -120  366  366
 94. Fridolin 4.00 8192 nodes           2       1       0       1     1.0   -120  366  366
 95. Movei00_8_438 8192 nodes           2       1       0       1     1.0   -120  371  371
 96. Stockfish 11 2048 nodes            2       1       0       1     1.0   -120  366  366
 97. Fridolin 4.00 4096 nodes           2       1       0       1     1.0   -120  371  371
 98. Stockfish 11 1024 nodes            2       0       1       1     0.5   -204  303  359
 99. Berserk 13 1024 nodes              2       0       1       1     0.5   -214  300  358
100. Blunder 8.5.5 1024  nodes          2       0       1       1     0.5   -214  300  358
101. Seer 2.8.0 1024 nodes              2       0       1       1     0.5   -214  300  358
102. Blunder 8.5.5 2048  nodes          2       0       0       2       0   -351  325  574
103. Alexandria-6.1.0 512 nodes         2       0       0       2       0   -351  325  574
104. Movei00_8_438 1024 nodes           2       0       0       2       0   -351  325  574
105. Movei00_8_438 512 nodes            2       0       0       2       0   -351  325  574
106. Fridolin 4.00 2048 nodes           2       0       0       2       0   -351  325  574
107. Blunder 8.5.5 512 nodes            2       0       0       2       0   -351  325  574
108. Berserk 13 512 nodes               2       0       0       2       0   -351  325  574
109. Stockfish 11 512 nodes             2       0       0       2       0   -351  325  574
110. Stash v35.0 2048 nodes             2       0       0       2       0   -351  325  574
111. Movei00_8_438 2048 nodes           2       0       0       2       0   -351  325  574
112. Stash v35.0 512 nodes              2       0       0       2       0   -351  325  574
113. Fridolin 4.00 512 nodes            2       0       0       2       0   -351  325  574
114. Fridolin 4.00 1024 nodes           2       0       0       2       0   -351  325  574
115. Fridolin 4.00 16384 nodes          2       0       0       2       0   -351  325  574
116. Black Marlin 9.0 512 nodes         2       0       0       2       0   -351  325  574
117. Black Marlin 9.0 1024 nodes        2       0       0       2       0   -351  325  574
118. Stash v35.0 4096 nodes             2       0       0       2       0   -351  325  574
 

[AlexChess]

a bug in the gauntlet results:
There are 236 games in the pgn that I downloaded but for some reason the table gives only 234 games and ignore the last 2 losses against obsidian 12 2048 nodes

The crosstable that is too big to post here simply write -- for the game between obsidian 1024 nodes and obsidian 12 2048 nodes

Every gui has his bugs Anyway with this post you have remembered me to test also Obsidian 13 that seems very strong

[Uri Blass]

a bug in the gauntlet results:
There are 236 games in the pgn that I downloaded but for some reason the table gives only 234 games and ignore the last 2 losses against obsidian 12 2048 nodes

The crosstable that is too big to post here simply write -- for the game between obsidian 1024 nodes and obsidian 12 2048 nodes

Every gui has his bugs Anyway with this post you have remembered me to test also Obsidian 13 that seems very strong

I use banksia inpite of the bugs and this subject is about banksia gui so I mention a bug of banksia and not bugs of different gui.

I see that latest version is Obsidian12 and not 13(so I guess the number 13 is a typing mistake of you).
https://github.com/gab8192/Obsidian

Edit:I see that the author has some change after 12 but it is only a small rating improvement and no public release so not 13.

Use previous search score in TM is the last patch and test is unfinished based on the link.

Elo | 2.17 +- 2.82 (95%)
SPRT | 8.0+0.08s Threads=1 Hash=16MB
LLR | 1.92 (-2.25, 2.89) [0.00, 3.00]

[AlexChess]

I use banksia inpite of the bugs and this subject is about banksia gui so I mention a bug of banksia and not bugs of different gui.

I see that latest version is Obsidian12 and not 13(so I guess the number 13 is a typing mistake of you).
https://github.com/gab8192/Obsidian

Edit:I see that the author has some change after 12 but it is only a small rating improvement and no public release so not 13.

Use previous search score in TM is the last patch and test is unfinished based on the link.

Elo | 2.17 +- 2.82 (95%)
SPRT | 8.0+0.08s Threads=1 Hash=16MB
LLR | 1.92 (-2.25, 2.89) [0.00, 3.00]

You are right, I have confused it with Berserk 13 update.

Thanks for discussing, instead of offending me and for using BanksiaGui. I don't remember all the Arena tournaments features, because I have stopped using it years ago for other bugs, but I remember that BanksiaGui DOWNLOAD LINK has been a quantum leap from it and Fritz 19 GUI that is the worse

I hope that Pham will fix soon all the bugs that I have reported to him (even if I have a workaround for almost everyone) I will support you when it will be possible (I'm BanksiaGui Forum admin and you are always welcome there)

[phhnguyen]

Banksiagui is far better than Fritz 18, Cutechess and Arena on tournament management

I wonder. Apart from concurrency, Arena can do everything and in a very user-friendly manner. What can Banksia do what Arena cannot?

Around 1000 things.
Try it.

Please list just 5. Try it.

You surprised me! I guess you used one but not both Arena and BSG, didn’t you?

I call a thing BSG can do but Arena can’t is just a difference. Different programs should have a lot of differences. If you ask to name 1000 differences it may be a big challenge but 5 only is an easy and quite obvious task. You just need to open two programs and put them next to each other. You may name 5 different things quickly by watching and comparing: with BSG you may customise easily the positions of clocks (above, under, both above-under the board or in a panel - oppositely, so far I have tried some times but can’t move Arena clocks); all panels can be customised easily, from floating to dock around or double, triple or overlapping docked - by dragging-dropping them (again I don’t know how to move Arena panels to other positions, say, the chart one to the left side of the window); similar to the toolbars, users can float them or move and dock them around; users can set the background of the board or any panel, using plain colours to photos; users can use external image, SVG files for displaying chess pieces; all pieces, boards, text, images, icons are displayed in very high resolutions, suitable with modern monitors (Arena doesn’t display its icons/pieces/images well in high resolution monitors); Arena chart can display only score in a line graph, BSG chart can show (customisablely) score, nodes, depth, elapse time, speed, TbHit, WDL in different chart types (simple lines, dots, bars, curves).

All the above points are just about interfaces at a glance. You may continue comparing their main menu, and popup menus, and check their dialogue boxes… to find many more different points.

In-depth, Arena is an old program, first released in 2002 and (probably) stopped in 2015/2020, using a modern development tool at its time Delphi Pascal but now that tool is probably dead. In contrast, BSG was first released in 2019 (17 years later) and got a lot of ideas from previous chess GUIs as well as new ideas and wishes/expectations from users. BSG used Qt, a good, modern and strong development tool nowadays. The gap years between two programs is huge, equal a several generations of software. That leads to very different and ability, both visualities and functionalities between two chess GUIs. For example, the features of highly dynamic move/dock panels/toolbars, supporting high solutions, and dark mode… are provided, and supported (70% of work) by the libraries of our development tools.

BSG supports chess engines with their latest technologies which Arena didn’t know at the time releasing, For example, BSG understands how to display WDL ratios in tables and charts.

BSG is very strong and has the most features/functions in the chess GUI world for tournament management: support odd timers, all popular tournament types, stop-resume tournament, reset crash/time out games to replay or rest all tournaments to replay, sort, create on the fly reports, cross table, calculate and update on the fly Elo... Arena doesn’t support tournament types Knockout and Swiss, odd and Armageddon time controls.

BSG is easy to use, say, users could drag-drop engines into it to install, and drag-drop opening books to install or view data, PGN, and databases to view them. BSG remembers almost all settings, including what users set for tournaments. BSG is designed for the most convenience. For example, when making a new tournament users can see, verify, and change the settings of chess engines on the same dialogue boxes, without the need to get out/in to change those settings. Users can configure once for all chess engines too (say, the number of threats, hash table size, Syzygy path) to reduce efforts and make sure tournaments are fair. Thus they can recreate new ones quickly and with very little time and effort.

Besides being chess GUIs, both BSG and Arena are platforms for chess utilities. However, BSG has significantly more. Say, playing via a local network, Lichess bots, coach, extreme chess analysis, viewing/creating OCGDB database format, OBS book format, test positions, Syzygy info, chess variants…

To be fair, Arena has something BSG doesn’t have, say, supporting shuffle chess (however, BSG is going to support Xiangqi and Jeiqi instead), Gaviota, Scorpion EGTBs, opening books in Arena's format, electronic boards…

You have seen their differences in the big picture. If we look closer in every detail, I believe we can count over 1000 different points!

PS: of course, I am biased when saying good things about BSG. BTW this is a topic of BSG. Nevertheless, I am not good at using Arena (I didn’t use it) thus I may miss some good features of Arena when comparing. Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong.



Panels


Charts, boards as tooltips


Easy to understand, isn’t it


Watching multiple games concurrently of a tournaments


View, search databases


View the Opening book tree


Coach


What is that?


Support tournament odd timers, all popular tournament types



Tournament result: cross table, elo, updated on the fly



View suggestions from local/internet EGTBs

[Gabor Szots]

Hi Pham,

Thanks for the reply, although I expected him to answer.

The guy said: 'Banksiagui is far better than Fritz 18, Cutechess and Arena on tournament management.'

And while Arena may not support all kinds of tournaments, its tournament management is excellent and very easy to use. To set up engines and tournament is a breeze with it.

I did use both and all I can say Banksia is too complicated for me so I have given up using it. Most of the tournament features you list are unnecessary for me. And, for example, I still don't know how to set up a gauntlet so that the rounds are numbered properly (once we have talked about that but I recall we had a misunderstanding and I have given up).
And I had problems with all those windows, I could never display what I wanted to see. Windows seemed to disappear arbitrarily and I could not bring them back. Again, Banksia is too complicated to use, IMO.

Maybe I will return to Banksia in the future when I have the patience to try to understand its workings. But, as I use these GUI's exclusively for playing tournaments for CCRL, Arena provides me with everything I need and in a very user-friendly way.

[Modern Times]

Banksia was too complicated for me as well, to learn it in a short space of time. If you've got the time to get over the steep learning curve, I'm sure it is an excellent GUI though.