Arena 3.5 question

The Arena websites states that:

"Arena has an easy-to-use and configurable interface. Adjust Arena according to your personal preferences!"

Can someone explain to me how to do this? The default setting seems to be set to a challenging difficulty level. Also is there a way to set a computer closer to my son's level of 845 rating? Lastly is there a manual, book or website that explains the Arena 3.5 game better?

Arena comes with a Help module that will answer many, but certainly not all, of your questions.

The Arena 3.5 setup file comes with eight engines, but only one of those engines (Rybka 2.3.2a) can be run at less than full strength. But even with the Rybka engine, it only goes down to 1200 elo, and imho, it's a strong 1200 at that. (Probably more like 1350 to 1400).

So yes, all of the stock Arena engines will be too strong for your son. For your son to use Arena as a sparring partner, you'd have to find, download, and install another engine that can play weaker than Rybka's lowest setting. I can help you with that task if you want to go down that road, but you'll have to learn how to install and configure the new engine into Arena.

If installing extra engines into Arena sounds like too daunting of a task, your other option would be to just download a copy of Lucas Chess. It contains a lot of engine personalities out of the box that can play at a very weak level, and I'd think it would be easier for your son to use if the idea of installing extra engines doesn't appeal to you.

http://www-lucaschess.rhcloud.com/index

thank you...yes I would like to  install another engine that can play weaker than Rybka's lowest setting. You said you could help me with that.

OK, there are at least several engines that might work at the real weakie levels. We can start with one that's probably the easiest to install, Ufim 8.02. Here's the download link:

http://wbec-ridderkerk.nl/html/details1/Ufim.html

Step 1) Download the ufim_802.zip file to your computer. I like to save all of my downloaded engines in a separate folder location so that I have all of the downloaded engines in one location. Then I'll transfer over a copy of the file into my Arena folders for actual use with Arena.

Step 2) Now you need to actually transfer over a copy of the Ufim files into your Arena system folders. When setting up a "dumbed down" engine that plays at a certain elo setting, I like to install a separate copy of the engine for each elo setting. That way, if I want to play against a different elo level, I just pick the engine with that elo level, and I'm not constantly having to reconfigure the elo setting for a single engine. For example, you can install a Ufim engine for 850 elo, a different Ufim copy for 900 elo, another Ufim copy for 950 elo, etc.

For the first engine install, let's assume you want to set up a Ufim engine set at 850 elo. (Although you can actually choose any setting between 700 elo and 2000 elo.) BTW, don't assume that these elo settings are super accurate; They may not (and probably won't) correlate exactly to real USCF ratings.

Next, create a new folder within the Arena Engines folder, and give it a name like, say, "Ufim 8.02 elo 850". So now you should have a new, empty folder with a path something like this:

C:\Program Files (x86)\Arena 3.5\Engines\Ufim 8.02 elo 850\

Step 3) Now copy over the ufim_802.zip file into the new "Ufim 8.02 elo 850" folder.

Step 4) Now you need to unzip the ufim_802.zip file that you just copied over into the new folder. You'll need to have some kind of file compression/unarchiving utility program installed on your computer. If you already have one, that's great, just unzip the Ufim file into that new folder. If you don't have an unzipping program, you'll have to download and install one from the internet. Two good freeware ones are 7-Zip and PeaZip.

http://www.7-zip.org/

http://peazip.sourceforge.net/peazip-free-archiver.html

Step 5) Now that you have the Ufim files unzipped, you're ready to actually install the engine into Arena. Start up Arena if it's not already started. Now in the menu bar, click on "Engines --> Install New Engine...", and a popup window should appear titled "Open". Navigate to your newly created folder with the unzipped Ufim files, and single click (highlight) on the "ufim802.exe" file. Then click on the "Open" button in the lower righthand corner.

Step 6) Now a confirmation box will appear, asking if you want to start the new engine. You can do this one of two ways, and either way is OK. If you answer yes, it will load the new Ufim engine, and you can configure the engine settings, and you can later rename the engine and tweak the settings. If you answer no, it won't load the engine, and you can go into the "Engines --> Manage..." menu to change the engine's name and tweak the settings, then you can manually load the engine and then configure the engine settings.

For simplicity's sake, let's answer yes to the question posed by the confirmation box.

Step 7) Now that the engine is loaded, we need to configure the engine's settings. (The engine will be named simply Ufim802, but we can rename it later.) In the menu bar, click on "Levels --> Limit Playing Strength to ELO...". Now a pop-up box will appear, titled "Limit Engine Strength". Tick on the "Limit Strength to:" option, then specify 850, either by typing in the number, or using the up/down arrows. Now click on the "OK" button.

Step 8) Next, in the menu bar, click on "Engines --> Engine 1 --> Configure". A pop-up box will appear, titled "Ufim802 Configuration". You have four settings to choose. I usually choose to check ON the "DelayOnWeakLevels" setting, and have the other three settings checked OFF. Now click on the "OK" button.

Step 9) Now the only step left to do is to rename the engine and tweak the engine settings. In the menu bar, click on "Engines --> Manage...". A pop-up box will appear, titled "Engine Management". Notice that there are five tabs labeled Select, Details, Options, UCI, and Winboard. Also notice that the Details tab has four "sub-tabs" of its own (General, Special, Books, and Information).

Within the Engine Management box, there are simply too many engine settings for me to go over in detail. Maybe the best thing for you to do is to go through all of the settings and set the things you understand, and ask questions about the things that you don't understand.

But generally, the Details tab (and the General sub-tab) is where you would change the name of the engine from "Ufim802" to something like "Ufim 8.02 elo 850".

And since this is a UCI engine, you can ignore the "Winboard" tab (at least until you have to start using Winboard engines).

EscherehcsE thank you so much! It worked perfect! Your directions made it simple to install. 

You mentioned: "there are at least several engines that might work at the real weakie levels." Would it be possible to send me the links to those other engines that you mentioned so that I might repeat the process with at least two or three other engines to be included in the arena 3.5 program? Thank you in advance for helping me! You are awesome!

Some of these may be a bit stronger than you'd like, but I included them in the list anyway. And you might not want to tackle the Winboard engine, as you'd have to edit the engine's configuration file. I hope you can use a few of them.

UCI Engines -- Elo settings

Amyan 1.72 (1000-2400) - http://www.pincha.cl/amyan/amyane.html

Arasan 17.1 (also, ver 17.2 is now available) (1000-2600) (download the "Engine+book only" file) - http://www.arasanchess.org/downld.shtml

Cheng 4 ver 0.36c (800-2500) -- http://www.vlasak.biz/cheng/

Deuterium 14.2.33.276 (1000-2800) -- https://sites.google.com/site/deuteriumengine/files/deuterium

MadChess 1.4 (400-2000 - Requires .NET 3.5 SP1 or later) -- http://www.madchess.net/Page/Downloads

Rodent 1.4 (600-2600) (In the rodent.ini file, you must change "user normal" to "user power" (without the quotes) to get Elo Number settings) -- http://www.pkoziol.cal24.pl/rodent/rodent_download.htm

UCI Engines -- Skill Number settings

Stockfish 5 (0-20 skill levels; Level 0 is probably around 1200?) - http://stockfishchess.org/download/

Texel 1.04 (0-1000 skill levels; Level 0 is completely random) - http://web.comhem.se/petero2home/javachess/index.html


Winboard Engines  -- Elo settings

Horizon 4.4 (1000-2375; Must set elo via editing config file) -- http://www.horizonchess.com/pmwiki.php?n=Main.Download

Escherehcse

Good morning, in one of our previous discussions you mentioned...

"Arena comes with a Help module that will answer many, but certainly not all, of your questions."

The help button on my Arena program does not work. I can open up help tab, but the program does allow me to access the information. Would it be possible to send me a copy of the help for Arena 3.5? 

This problem has come up before with Arena 3.0. The only complaints come from people using Windows 8, so I'm assuming that's what you're using? I use Windows 7, which doesn't have this problem, so I can't help you directly. I'm not sure if the problem originates in Windows 8, or both Arena 3.0 and 3.5.

The help file is named English.chm - See the thread below for more information. The chm file extension means that the file is compiled html. For whatever reason, Windows 8 often can't open the Arena chm files.

Here's the previous thread discussing the problem. In posts 20 and 21, a couple of guys apparently solved the problem, at least for them.

http://www.chess.com/forum/view/general/arena-30-help-files-dont-work

Good luck, I'm afraid that's about the only help I can give you in this particular probem, as I can't really do any troubleshooting with Windows 8.

If you can't get your computer to read the CHM file, there's one other option, although it's not perfect. Here's a freeware CHM tool that's able to decompile CHM files into a bunch of separate HTML files. It worked on my Win7 PC, but I don't know if it works OK on Windows 8, since the program is for platforms Windows 2000 / XP / Vista / 7. (It might work on Windows 8, you'll just have to try it.)

http://www.northbright.com/chmtool/index.html

If absolutely nothing works for you, I could bundle up all of the separate HTML files and upload them to the internet where you can get to them. If need be, I could maybe find time to do it later today, but if that window is missed, I'll be too busy in the next few days to mess with the PC, so it would be a few days before I could upload the files.

The items on 20 and 21 helped. I can see the help files. Yeah! Thank you again! 

EscherehcsE

My computer seemed to be blocking the files as a way of protecting my computer from malware.

EscherehcsE

Good morning,

I tried installing extra engine "Rodent 1.4" into Arena...here is what happened....

In Rodent 1.4 (600-2600) (In the rodent.ini file, you must change "user normal" to "user power" (without the quotes) to get Elo Number settings) --

http://www.pkoziol.cal24.pl/rodent/rodent_download.htm

In the menu bar, click on "Levels --> Limit Playing Strength to ELO...". Now a pop-up box will appear, titled "Limit Engine Strength". Click on the "Limit Strength to:" option, then specify 600. 

***Download from website never actually downloaded when clicking on the link.

**Instead below rodent 1.4 was downloaded because it was the only option with the name rodent

Would it be possible to give me alittle bit of help? I was not able to change user normal to user power.

Good morning

Hmm, let's take it one step at a time. What happens when you click on this link?

http://www.pkoziol.cal24.pl/rodent/rodent_1.4.zip

What should be my best next move for white?

Can I do this in Arena?

Thanks for any response

I like the Arena Chess interface. Much better than Lucas Chess. But the problem is that while the interface is cleaner It is not easier for a beginner to just start playing and practice his game. There needs to be a beginner template or something.

wowo so nice a 2014 forum post has come to life

means?