With Gandalf 6 update 1 it is possible to create your own personallities, this page gives some step by step instructions on how to do this.

First step is to download and install update 1. To download the update, start ChessPartner then from the Help menu select Help on the Web -> Check for updates. The browser will open up; then follow the Gandalf 6 updates links to find the update. After downloading the update just run the file and it will install the update.

Only the native engine provides support to load personalities from files. This can be done from the engines properties dialog  ( press F4 or select Extra -> Engine properties ). The following dialog shows up:

To select a personality simply select one from the dropdown box, after clicking the Appy button the various parameters will be updated to reflect the loaded personality.

UCI Engine

The UCI version does not support loading personality files but it does support all the parameters as shown in the native engine. Although a bit less convenient it still has the same functionality.

Under ChessPartner you can create multiple Gandalf UCI engine profiles each with its own set of parameters. This may also work in other interfaces but how to do that is outside the scope of this article.

Creating your own personality files

To create your own personality files start with copying one of the existing files. Best to start with Default.per You can find these files in the gandalf engine directory. Default installation path is:

c:\Program Files\Lokasoft\ChessPartner 5.3\engines\g60

Next rename the copied file to your liking, you can give it any name but the extension must be .per.

Now open the file with notepad ( or any other plain text editor ), you will see something like this:

PAWNSTR 100
PASSEDPAWN 100
PASSEDPAWNENDGAME 100
ATTACK 100
SAFETY 100
DEVELOP 100
BISHOPPAIR 100
KNIGHT 100
BISHOP 100
ROOK 100
QUEEN 100

Now just edit the values you want to change and save the file. The meaning of the parameter are explained in the next section.

The parameters

A personality consist of a large number of parameters that can be adjusted. Default each parameter is set to 100 which means 100%. By lowering or increasing these weights the style of play can be altered. It is believed the default values gives the strongest and most balanced overall play but for fun you may want to create a super attacking style by setting attack to 200 and Safety to 50.

The parameters: