Arena

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Arena, a free Graphical User Interface for Chess Engine Communication Protocol and UCI compatible engines running under Windows, and since November 2016 Linux, developed by Martin Blume. The development started in 2001/2002 motivated and initiated by WinBoard aficionado Frank Quisinsky. The Arena team, soon maintaining their own website and support forum, was advanced by Christopher Conkie, Michael Diosi and a lot of other people for Language translation and Opening Book support, for instance Harry Schnapp, Đorđe Vidanović, Carlos Pesce and Dann Corbit to name a few mentioned on the Arena site. They initially set up an Arena Security Area for registered download of the GUI and the bundled Arena partner engines. In 2004 there was an attempt by Frank Quisinsky within the Gladiator-Shop to commercialize Arena bundled with engines such as Ruffian, Patriot and Ktulu. The Gladiator project was abandoned after suspicions that the new Patriot 2.0 was based on Fruit became substantial in May 2005. Arena 3.5.1 is the recent version which was available from the Arena download site, until its expiration in February 2019.

=Partner Engines=
 * AnMon by Christian Barreteau
 * Dragon by Bruno Lucas
 * Nejmet by Jean-Christophe Gabillard
 * Ruffian by Perola Valfridsson
 * SOS by Rudolf Huber
 * Betsy by Landon W. Rabern
 * Chispa by Federico Andrés Corigliano
 * Hermann by Volker Annuss
 * Spike by Volker Böhm & Ralf Schäfer
 * Aice by Anastasios Milikas

=Features= A brief summary
 * ABK - Arena's book format
 * Algebraic Chess Notation
 * Playing and analyzing chess games
 * Configurable Interface
 * Detailed information thinking process
 * DGT Chessboard and DGT clock XP
 * Engine Testing
 * Extended Position Description (EPD)
 * Chess960 (Fischer Random Chess)
 * Forsyth-Edwards Notation (FEN)
 * Gaviota Tablebases
 * Internet Chess Server
 * Portable Game Notation (PGN)
 * Printing
 * Tournament features
 * Support of 19 languages for the GUI
 * Support of Novag Citrine
 * UCI protocol I, II
 * WinBoard protocol I, II
 * Windows Clipboard for Games and Positions

=Team Issues= By August 2005, presumably after issues to commercialize Arena, Quisinsky left the team. In retrospect he explains his reasoning in the German CSS Forum, January 30, 2010 :

=Illegal Hosting= Despite free software, the Arena team demands downloads from their own site and combats illegal hosting of the GUI, the engines as well as their Web content. That also refers to interviews with programmers, which were copied even without citing the original source. Over the years they suffered not only from illegal hosting but during the time also from attacking their site. Their former ExactaChess site is closed now, the new site appeared in January 2011. However, it is not appropriate for the current Arena support team around Michael Diosi to attract attention by offensive public statements against their commercial and free software competitors , to defame people from Eastern European countries for not citing the source , and to react on the other side oversensitive after Harm Geert Muller used the phrase To each his own concerning the number of hits of the Arena site, as mentioned by Diosi.

=See also=
 * Aquarium
 * ChessGUI
 * ChessPartner GUI
 * Engine Testing
 * Fritz GUI
 * jose
 * Protocols
 * Shredder GUI
 * UCI
 * WinBoard

=Forum Posts=

2002 ...

 * New and free WinBoard and UCI GUI "Arena" by Martin Blume (Germany) ... by Frank Quisinsky, CCC, January 04, 2002
 * Arena 0.76 Beta 2 is available ... by Frank Quisinsky, CCC, March 03, 2002
 * schmutzig, schmutzig... by Marcus Kästner, ChessBits Forum, July 26, 2002 (German)
 * Arena 0.90 by Martin Blume is available! by Frank Quisinsky, CCC, October 02, 2002
 * Arena 0.949-b6 released has been released by Michael Diosi, CCC, October 30, 2003
 * Arena 1.0 / Ruffian 2.0 ... information! by Frank Quisinsky, CCC, November 21, 2003
 * Arena 1.0 released ... by Frank Quisinsky, Winboard Forum, November 27, 2003
 * Arena 1.02 / ELChinito 3.25 available ... by Frank Quisinsky, CCC, December 23, 2003
 * Arena 1.08 with UCI II support available in ASA ... by Frank Quisinsky, CCC, April 08, 2004
 * Second try: Arena 1.1 release information ... by Frank Quisinsky, CCC, December 09, 2004
 * Arena 1.1 by Christopher Conkie, CCC, December 17, 2004
 * What is new in Arena 1.1 GUI and what now ... by Frank Quisinsky, CCC, December 18, 2004

2005 ...

 * for the arena team (Christopher Conkie) by Eduard Nemeth, CCC, January 02, 2005
 * Arena and UCI commands by Josué Forte, Winboard Forum, April 30, 2005
 * iBase+ 2.0 for Arena Released by Michael Diosi, CCC, January 02, 2006
 * Arena 1.99 Beta 2 is available for download... by Christopher Conkie, CCC, January 20, 2006
 * Arena 2.0 released by Michael Diosi, Chess Knowledge Base, December 24, 2008

2010 ...

 * Arena 3.0 available by Michael Diosi, CCC, December 24, 2010
 * Arena future development.../Proposals ? by Michael Diosi, CCC, January 05, 2011
 * Arena/Interviews by Michael Diosi, CCC, February 23, 2011
 * Arena plans... by Michael Diosi, CCC, February 23, 2011
 * No.. by Michael Diosi, CCC, March 19, 2011
 * ... using Arena by Matthias Gemuh, CCC, August 20, 2011 » Arena
 * Problem with UCI engines hash in Arena by Carl Langan, CCC, December 26, 2012 » UCI
 * Psst... by Michael Diosi, CCC, January 04, 2013
 * Arena 3.5 is out by Tony Mokonen, CCC, January 02, 2014
 * Arena 3.5 by Michael Diosi, CCC, January 02, 2014
 * Arena 3.5: No Adjudicated TB ending? by Rob Nicholas, CCC, January 02, 2014
 * Help with Arena issue by Daniel Sparks, CCC, February 19, 2014

2015 ...

 * Arena 3.5.1 - Autoplayer by Krzysztof Grzelak, CCC, March 01, 2016
 * Getting engines to use TBs in Arena by Brendan J. Norman, CCC, July 19, 2016 » Endgame Tablebases
 * Arena for Linux by Jesse Gersenson, CCC, November 15, 2016 » Linux
 * How to use Arena book? by P. Kumar, CCC, February 01, 2017 » ABK
 * Arena 1.1 for Linux by Arnaud lohéac, CCC, February 06, 2017
 * Advice on how to use Arena GUI for engine-engine matches by Erfuk Neuni, CCC, March 04, 2018
 * Arena website down >= 48 hrs by Carl Lumma, CCC, February 24, 2019
 * Re: Arena website down >= 48 hrs by Mike S., CCC, February 28, 2019

=External Links=

GUI

 * Arena Chess GUI - Welcome to Arena )
 * A first look at Arena? by Aaron Tay, hosted by Ron Murawski's Computer-Chess Wiki, June 23, 2002

Misc

 * Arena (disambiguation) from Wikipedia
 * Arena from Wikipedia
 * Amphitheatre from Wikipedia
 * Colosseum from Wikipedia
 * Gladiator from Wikipedia

=References=

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