How to Make Custom Opening Books Using Chesspartner Software

Do you have a Lokasoft engine or use another engine with the Chesspartner client and wish there was a way to make custom opening books? There is! It is hard to find engine books that feature one-off openings such as the Blackmar Gambit or the Owens Defense, so we are forced to take matters into our own chess hands.

First, click on the little icon at the top that looks like a rain cloud with lightning coming out of it. This will put Chesspartner in analyze mode, which will allow you to move the chess pieces without the engine responding.

Next, make the opening moves you would like to see the chess engine play on the board by moving them with the mouse. When you are satisfied with the moves, go to the top of the client and select File - Book Maintenance - New Book. Chesspartner will then prompt you for a file name, which you can make whatever you want. Using the chess opening name for the file is a good way to find it later. Click "Save" and the book will be created.

The next box asks you for a short description of the chess opening book, which is optional. However, I do recommend checking the box that says "Generate book with win/loss statistics", because this will help the engine improve its chess play accordingly. Simply click "OK" and everything is official.

Now to get the chess moves into the opening book, click File - Book Maintenance - Add Variation. This will open the "Add Book Moves" box, and will allow you to tell the engine whether it should play the chess moves using white, black or both, and ask for a score. Your best bet is to put in the score that the engine evaluates the position as when analyzing. Then simply click "OK", and the engine is ready to play a chess game using your new book.

Custom chess books can help you improve in many ways, especially if the engine is using an opening you actually play. You can see how the engine will react to different situations, and then utilize those responses in your own chess games. Also, after each new variation the engine meets, you can go to File - Book Maintenance - Add Variation again, and the new moves will be stored into the opening book so that the engine will not have to think the next time it encounters the same move order. I usually add the new variation at move ten, but you can input as many moves as you like for the opening.