best free GUI?

[Marc MP]

For engine matches, exclusively Winboard (with polyglot and Pradu Simple Winboard Tourney Manager PSWBTM 2.0). Lightweight, solid, fast, nicely customizable since the x-version (A. Scotti) and now supporting tons of chess variants and new features like time odds and advanced adjudication capabilities with H.G. Muller recent release.

For running epd test sets, I use mostly Arena, on occasion B. Moreland & T. Mayer's test harness.

I've yet to find to satisfactory free GUI for analysis; I don't think any of them support the handy uci command "serachmoves". I use commercial Chess Partner for this.

[mercury]

Is it possible to use a Chessbase engine like Fritz in a non chessbase GUI?

[AdminX]

Is it possible to use a Chessbase engine like Fritz in a non chessbase GUI?

No, its not possible...

Maybe someday, if they (Chessbase) decide to go full UCI, but don't count on that happening any time soon. With Rybka, I don't think they had much choice. Because the ship was about to set sail without them.

[Marc MP]

I forgot to say,

1- I need to try again ChessGUI, my only experience with it was at the beginning of the project. It seems getter better almost everyday!

2- For playing on FICS: Babaschess. If you don't know that one you need to try this. There is a new (to me) version available, 4.0. I used the previous versions to follow the San Luis World Championship tournament 2 years ago. Worked like a charm; multiple boards possible, analysis with engines etc... (Have a look at some screenshots here: http://www.babaschess.net/screenshots.asp)

Tip: Download BabasChess Graphic Pack. You will have about 30 very nice sets of bitmap theme usable in Winboardx and later. With the default installation, the .bmp files will be in: C:\Program Files\BabasChess\Data\SQUARE.

[George Tsavdaris]

Well, the WinBoard package (WinBoard, PSWBTM, Polyglot), of course! That can do it all.

No, you can't play Dark Chess.

Seriously i will try to convince you or Matthias to put support for this amazing variant and maybe write an engine for it.
But that(my try to convince you ) will come in some days.....

[swami]

Arena is very user friendly (Something I value very much)

and the GUI has excellent graphics and a lot of features, Go for it first.

[mercury]

I forgot to say,

1- I need to try again ChessGUI, my only experience with it was at the beginning of the project. It seems getter better almost everyday!

2- For playing on FICS: Babaschess. If you don't know that one you need to try this. There is a new (to me) version available, 4.0. I used the previous versions to follow the San Luis World Championship tournament 2 years ago. Worked like a charm; multiple boards possible, analysis with engines etc... (Have a look at some screenshots here: http://www.babaschess.net/screenshots.asp)

Tip: Download BabasChess Graphic Pack. You will have about 30 very nice sets of bitmap theme usable in Winboardx and later. With the default installation, the .bmp files will be in: C:\Program Files\BabasChess\Data\SQUARE.

Thank you but I already know Babaschess

[mercury]

I use Winboard.

I've had problems with all of the others - exception ChessGUI which I have used once.

I wrote my own "Tourney Manager" - a small program to make batch files according to setting in a config file, and run my tournaments this way, according to my own specifications.

I became sick of leaving four or five variants of Lime to test, only to look a day later and see a problem with Arena / Chessbase / etc had stopped the tournament.

Winboard itself is amazing - fast, and reliable, with masses of options.

That said, I used to use Arena for a long time. 1.1 is pretty good, the later versions not so good.

Richard

Why is Arena 1.1 better than next versions?

[Guerrero]

Winboard for ever.
It functions in my PC P3 933Mhz excellent.

[terminator]

cmd.exe

You sure do like life on the darkside

I'm not sure why everyone else is trying to kiss Arena's a$$ but its so good I haven't started it for a long long time (maybe like once in a year). For the serious chess player (we've heard that before) I would recommend ChessBase Light or Fritz 5.32 if you are skint. Winboard, Arena should be in the museum by now. Arena and Winboard are dead, long live Arena and Winboard.