Few questions on Books, Toga etc

[terminator]

- which is the best free engine? Is it Toga? If so which version as there are different versions and compiles.

- which is the best free CTG opening book i.e updated with recent games?

- which is the best GUI? Chessbase/Arena/Rybka Aquarium/Chess Assistant?

- is there a free updated version of Fritz opening book?

[Rubinus]

- which is the best free engine? Is it Toga? If so which version as there are different versions and compiles.
- which is the best free CTG opening book i.e updated with recent games?
- which is the best GUI? Chessbase/Arena/Rybka Aquarium/Chess Assistant?
- is there a free updated version of Fritz opening book?

a) Fruit, Toga and new Glaurung. If 64bit, probably Glaurung better than Toga or Fruit.
b) Not know, equally. Probably Perfect by Sedat.
c) Analyze, private tournament/matches -> CB my choice. Playing -> Chessmaster. Travel -> Arena/flash disk.
d) No, it self.

[Ovyron]

a) Fruit, Toga and new Glaurung.

On 1 CPU 32bit I think Rybka BETA deserves a mention (stronger than Toga and Fruit on my computer).

And if by "best" you include playing style, I'd vote Thinker Passive 1.5D as the best freeware.

[Graham Banks]

- which is the best free engine? Is it Toga? If so which version as there are different versions and compiles.

Toga II 3.1.2SE and Toga II 1.4.1SE

- which is the best free CTG opening book i.e updated with recent games?

Balanced-16.ctg or HS-Masterbook.ctg

- which is the best GUI? Chessbase/Arena/Rybka Aquarium/Chess Assistant?

At present, still Chessbase. However both Arena and ChessGUI are free.

- is there a free updated version of Fritz opening book?

Don't think so

Of course, this is just in my opinion and others will likely disagree.

[Mark Mason]

Enrico,

Sedat Canbez is currently running an extensive Book tournament comparing the performance of all free to download books against each other. The book that is currently performing best and therefore the strongest is called MyBook 8.1 made by a Russian bookmaker called YuriyGudzovatiy.

It is 263Mb in size and made from 84,978 games. It is not private and is publically available to download from:

http://www.mediafire.com/?sfnv8mejctx

Mark

[Mark Mason]

I meant to add the link to the book testing tournament. He is testing 54 books and MyBook 8.1 is currently No1. See here for details:

http://www.sedatchess.com/scct_opening_book.html

Mark

[Eelco de Groot]

Thanks for the link Mark! And thanks to Yuriy for his book! I downloaded it and it seems to be fine, it is a bit bigger in games even than Harry's HS for Rybka.ctg, in size it is 267,604 kB, more than twice as big if that means anything, and slightly less wide, less moves as tournament moves.

Here is a screenshot of the book in Chessbase Light:



Book Line Regards,
Eelco

[gerold]

Enrico,

Sedat Canbez is currently running an extensive Book tournament comparing the performance of all free to download books against each other. The book that is currently performing best and therefore the strongest is called MyBook 8.1 made by a Russian bookmaker called YuriyGudzovatiy.

It is 263Mb in size and made from 84,978 games. It is not private and is publically available to download from:

http://www.mediafire.com/?sfnv8mejctx

Mark

Will it work in Arena. Thanks.

[Theodor]

Hi Eelco,
I have tested Yuriy's book and have found very good and very bad
lines. For example: after 1)e4 black plays only 1)..c6. If he feels so
strongly with Caro-Kann then he should show super lines for black and
not out of book sometimes with a disadvantage of -0.60 or more!.
With the continue this lines can be seen that the engine has difficulties to
salvage the game.

[terminator]

What happened to sheebar? Superchessengine have not updated it for several years. Superchessengine is a good site in my opinion but it suffers from a lack of updates and being difficult to navigate.

I agree with Chessbase GUIs being 'better' than Arena. Arena is hard to work with and has been in beta stage for a long time while others make gold releases.