Intro and Question re: Acceptable Opening Books

[Graham Banks]

Welcome to our site.
Which GUI are you using for your testing?

[Ray]

None of us use Aquarium so unfortunately I'm not sure that we can give any advice there

I have Aquarium 3. A radical re-design of what a GUI could look like and do, but a steep learning curve and I gave up after a while. My impression was that it is a better analysis tool then a tool for running engine matches and tournaments. Aquarium 4 could be better, but I have not purchased it. If I get some time I might try the evaluation version if there is one.

[Ray]

You are spoilt for choice in terms of Fritz GUI opening books

For Adam's books, look here
http://kirill-kryukov.com/chess/tools/opening-sampler/

They are not books, but pgn files of opening positions

[Graham Banks]

You are spoilt for choice in terms of Fritz GUI opening books

Harry Schnapp's HS-Masterbook 4.0.ctg is the best I've come across yet for both variety and fair positions at the end of lines.
I'd recommend upping the variety slider to halfway and using minimum games 3.

There are other smaller books which are good too - the Xmas2640.ctg and History107.ctg from Mike Scheidl, and the Perfect books from Sedat Canbaz spring to mind.

Be aware that all books will have a few rogue lines in them.

[Kirill Kryukov]

Doesn't work for me, the sampler only accepts 4 digits

Thanks for checking, I forgot that I added that limitation. I now added download section to the sampler page. Adam's PGNs have no headers due to their huge size.

[Ray]

Thanks for checking, I forgot that I added that limitation. I now added download section to the sampler page. Adam's PGNs have no headers due to their huge size.

Brilliant. The 4-digit limitation was necessary to avoid too much load on the server I imagine

[Kirill Kryukov]

Yeah, exactly. I should also compress the PGN files for faster downloads.

[Adam Hair]

I just wanted to say that those pgns are, in a sense, a compilation of all the booklines that have
been played in the CCRL, CEGT, SWCR, and other sources. It is guaranteed that rogue lines are
present in them ( rogue positions ). Hopefully, the percentage is very small.

At the moment, I am preparing a 4 move pgn that I think will be appropriate for engine matches
involving weaker engines and rogue free ( I hope ).