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Opening Books

 Introduction 

Der Bringer offers several opening book features. Der Bringer is supplied with a 1.2-MB opening book, called opening.bok. An optional larger opening book ("medium.bok," 3 MB) is available as well, from the Der Bringer site. You also can create your own opening books, or edit an existing book by adding moves on the fly, or rating moves as you enter them.

The following links take you directly to the specified information on this page:

 Installing The Larger Opening Book 

  1. Download medium_bok.zip and unzip it into the Der Bringer folder.
  2. Start Der Bringer.
  3. On the menu toolbar, click Opening book.
  4. Select Choose Opening Book.
  5. Click medium.bok and click Open.
    Der Bringer will now use the larger opening book.

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 Creating and Editing an Opening Book 

Der Bringer makes it easy to edit an existing opening book or create a new book. Editing an existing book is not recommended because of the possibility of corrupting the file. You can copy an existing book and rename the copy, then edit the copy, or start with a completely new book.

If you have a favorite opening you would like to practice against with Der Bringer, create an opening book specifically for the lines that interest you.

Opening books can be edited in two ways, by manually entering moves and saving them to the book, or by importing PGN files. Manually entering moves is tedious and prone to errors. Better to create a series of PGN files, check them for accuracy with Der Bringer or Winboard, and then import them into a Der Bringer opening book.

To create a new opening book:
  1. From the menu toolbar, choose Opening Book, or click the Choose Opening Book button.
  2. Type the name you want to give the new book, and click Open.
  3. In the Opening Book menu, select Book options and specify how many moves in the PGN file you want to add to the opening book. The default setting is 15 moves.

    edbk.gif (3259 bytes)

  4. Select Edit Opening Book from the Opening Book menu or click the button. This function toggles on and off.
  5. In the Opening Book menu, click Add PGN file and select the file.
  6. Click Open. The file is added to the opening book. If the PGN file contains more than one game, they are all imported.
    I created some opening-specific opening books by downloading PGN files for those openings from the Pitt site ( ftp://136.142.185.47/group/student-activities/chess/PGN/ )and cutting out the last 100 games in the files to place in a separate PGN file, which I then imported into a Der Bringer opening book.
  7. When you have imported the last PGN file, click the Edit Opening Book button or uncheck Edit Opening Book in the Opening Book menu.
You can add more files to this book by selecting the book and repeating steps 2-7.

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 Editing an Opening Book On The Fly 

You also can add a move to an opening book, and rate that move to tell Der Bringer how often to use it, or to not use it at all.

Choose the opening book you want to modify with Choose Opening Book. opbk-but.gif (223 bytes)

When the position of interest is on the board, select Edit Opening Book edbk-but.gif (209 bytes) and play the desired move. That move will be added to the book.

If you press the Ctrl key while moving, you can rate that move in the window that appears:

opngscore.gif (1948 bytes)


Der Bringer interprets your selection as follows:

very good Always play this move
good Play this move often
neutral A neutral move
bad Seldom play this move
very bad Never play this move


You can modify a book for your opening training (eg, to train with Black against the Closed Sicilian, tag 1. e4 "very good," and after ...c5 tag 2. Nc3 with  "very good," also). You can use this option to tune a book for better performance in Der Bringer's games; eg,. prohibit openings which Der Bringer doesn't understand (Benoni with Black, for example).

Click Save Opening Book  savbk-but.gif (230 bytes)  to save the new move.

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