Användarnamn: Lösenord:
Registrering av Ny Användare
Moderator: Cheri 
 Pente


Pente & its variants.

Here are the Pente rules for beginners



Meddelanden per sida:
Förteckning över diskussionsforum
Du har inte tillstånd att skriva på denna sida. Lägsta nivå på medlemskap för att kunna skriva i detta forum är Brain Bonde.
Läge: Alla kan skriva
Söka bland inlägg:  

6. maj 2003, 08:18:31
waterdancer 
Ämne: Thoughts for rules changes to improve pente. Making pente with no opening move restriction a fair game.Pente for points (not exactly like the original variant)
I thought I had put up a post re: pente for points variant here but I'm not seeing it. Just as well- now after further thought I believe I can make a very effective case for it. I read one of Tom Braunlich's books many years ago and remember seeing it mentioned, but not paying too much attention at the time. Here are my thoughts: I agree with Virag that long rules changes are what are needed: Tournament rules lasted us 20 years. Gary has said that white still has a moderate advantage in tournament rules; no one knows the exact value of this advantage, but it is doubtless greater than the advantage for white in chess. Consider- most chess games between top players are draws! There are no draws in pente (except by agreement; show me a 19X19 board filled with stones without a win for either side and I'd say it's either a joke- neither player was trying to win or it's a GO game) so what is currently happening in pente tournaments is that top players of equal strength are trading wins depending on who is white a significant amount of the time. Obviously, for top players this is unacceptable in tournament play- hence the proposed rules changes. Although the rules changes proposed are interesting and no doubt fairly easy for top level players (swap options), to me they create a further striation between players. Look at it this way- in order for one player to place four stones on the board and offer to play from either side s/he must be fairly confident of being able to have close to a 50% chance from either position. I contend that most players of pente are not at the level where that is an easy thing for them to be confident of. Most over the board players won't have an opening book at hand yet, I suspect, so when they learn to play it will be with current tournament rules most likely. Eventually they may graduate to D pente, but it may not be an easy transition.
My proposal: reverse engineer a point system for pente games based on analysis of games played and fine tune it as needed. Here is what I think it might look like- 25 points per stone captured, 50 points per tessera or for a 3_1 or 1_3_1 game, winner gets some points based on the number of moves it takes to win: one possibility for this would be something like 30-x where x=# of moves. Loser's points are only counted up to winner's points -1. A match is played until the end of a game in which one or both player's scores exceed 1000 points. The above numbers are just for purpose of example. By looking at games already played in tournament rules, keryo, no restrictions pente and other variants values for these games could be determined based primarily on close games between top players. Why go through all this trouble? 1.It would quickly allow the relative value of player one's advantage to be numerically defined for each game so that it could be eliminated by factoring it into the score!! You read that right; if we can figure this out we can play pente evenly with no opening move restrictions! : If two players are of relatively equal strength in a game it should be the average value of the difference between the winner's score and the loser's score if an odd number of games are played. 2. It would allow players of different ability to play against each other by enabling a method of handicapping the stronger player. A very strong player could perhaps spot a beginner 5 or 6 hundred points and have an interesting match. 3. It would change as little as possible about the feeling of each game, since the scoring system would be based on games already played without it and how close they appear games would not suddenly have to evolve in new direction in order to nullify the player one (or two advantage). 4. It would make players fight games out to the bitter end from a losing position so that they could have a closer score. This would make games between top players more accessible to novices: if a top player sees a forced win in 5 moves and feels that his opponent will surely see it, he currently has no incentive to play the game out and may resign. A novice studying the game may well not see the win easily (unless the game has commentary attached). 5. A more effective rating system can be established for pente players. Example: if two top level players should come to this site and only play against each other in tournament rules swapping games trading games for 100 games there would be no way for the current rating system to distinguish between their abilities in the game. Let's say one player knows the lines so well that s/he never makes an error and always finds the quickest and surest route to victory. The second player obviously has a very good grasp of the game as well in order to trade games with the master, but in perhaps one tenth of the games s/he makes an unnecessary move or two which nonetheless do not affect the outcome of the game(win for white). If 1/10th of these tactical errors throw the game to black, then one could look at the rankings of these players for months without noticing the difference in skill level between them. With my proposal it would become apparent as soon as the weaker player made a tactical error in a match of 5 or so games whether or not the error was enough to throw the game: i.e. the stronger player can demonstrate that a forced win situation existed in 6 moves while it took the weaker player 8 moves to come to a win. It might not affect the ranking immediately, but the master would immediately know he was the stronger player. Sorry for extreme length of post, but now I've made my case. I don't object to other variants being tried and tested, but I feel this one has the most potential to turn pente and its variants into "the board player's duplicate bridge" i.e. an extremely popular game of mental skill where players of similar and/ordifferent abilities can compete against each other for fun and/or money. Of course the will be downsides to this idea; the amount of effort involved to find accurate evaluations and equations would probably be considerable to say the least. There might be less incentive to explore the outer reaches, once it becomes possible to play evenly without restrictions. My sense though, is that if it is feasible, even if it takes a few years to put into place, it would be worth the effort to improve the game, because the game would really be sooo much better if it could be evened up. Remember, finding an opening book where player 1 wins 50% of the games is not exactly an easy task either- I suspect that those lines have been explored by relatively few players, since it is to their advantage to play from a positional advantage :~) Only when we have many players playing those lines may we come to realize that they are not as even as they seemed given correct play. Then other positions have to be found, etc., etc. It could be a long journey just to find out that there are really only one or two positions which offer an equal chance. Sorry, I'll shut up now.

8. maj 2003, 15:19:07
mmammel 
Ämne: Re: Thoughts for rules changes to improve pente. Making pente with no opening move restriction a fair game.Pente for points (not exactly like the original variant)
<>resolved by removing ALL affected pairs for both sides

OK, that sounds good I'll have to try the updated puzzle with that rule.

> if we can figure this out we can play pente evenly with no opening move restrictions!

That is true that you could assign points to the game so that players could receive a fair score in a game without opening restrictions, BUT it would be an uninteresting game! It would be too lopsided and too short of a game, I would rather see a longer battle.

-Mark

8. maj 2003, 16:26:15
waterdancer 
Ämne: Re: Thoughts for rules changes to improve pente. Making pente with no opening move restriction a fair game.Pente for points (not exactly like the original variant)
It is true Mark, that pente without opening move restrictions would be a short and lopsided game (at least for the players who know the game); mainly my point was to emphasize that opening restrictions are unnecessary in order to make a fair game out of pente. I suspect that most of us would still play with the current tournament rules if points were used to get rid of white's edge. Some might want to play the game they were used to (without restrictions) and they could be the ones to analyse their games to determine the weighing factors to make theirs a fair game, while we would determine ours :~} The keryo masters would find theirs, etc. I'm not even certain that my variant needs an equalizer. Who knows? My other point is still valid, though, I think, which is that determining the points for whatever version one plays enables new and less experienced players to have a chance to learn the game from masters without the downside of feeling totally outmatched and not being able to see their improvement. I feel that this is important in building confidence in learning; constant frustration is not as conducive to a quick steep learning curve as is a consistently positive reinforcement as they can witness the handicap shrink match by match. After all, even if your team doesn't win, if you bet on them to beat the point spread and they do, you have some consolation. :~) Also, if someone like me, who started out playing pente without opening move restrictions wants to learn the game with restrictions, matches would be possible to set up using both, to facilitate the learning process; i.e.- when I was first learning,I could play a match of 3 or 4 games with you with you starting as white and playing tournament rules. If after observing your strategies as player 1 I still didn't feel like I could play it effectively, I could open without restriction on my turn- the difference would be factored into the score. The scoring allows things like this: if you beat me by 100 points in our first match, give me a handicap of 60 points. Next round if I only lose by 20 points I can see that I've improved by 20 points. Next match the handicap is 40 and I lose by 15 points. I've already improved by 45 points in just two matches! Wow, this is a fun game and you are a great teacher!

10. maj 2003, 16:33:24
Thad 
Ämne: Re: Thoughts for rules changes to improve pente. Making pente with no opening move restriction a fair game.Pente for points (not exactly like the original variant)
Tom,

Your points system is interesting, but would make things worse, rather than better.

First of all, you?d have to come up with a scoring system that everyone agreed with. Good luck on that.

Second, and more importantly, a win is a win. It doesn?t matter whether my opponent caps four of my pairs or none, as long as I get the five in a row (or five pairs). Also, if I resign a game, how would you score it? The only game I can think of that uses a points system to determine a champ is Div. I college football, and everyone agrees that?s a messed up system!!

Also, if Pente were played under a points system, we?d be less inclined to try out new lines.

Also, if points were awarded for caps and length (shortness) of a game, would it be better to take an unnecessary cap. It would get me an extra pair (and thus more points), but make the game longer, and make me look like a weaker player.

Thad

11. maj 2003, 10:36:14
waterdancer 
Ämne: Re: Thoughts for rules changes to improve pente. Making pente with no opening move restriction a fair game.Pente for points (not exactly like the original variant)
Thanks for the reply Thad. Here is how I'd address your points:
1."First of all, you?d have to come up with a scoring system that everyone agreed with. Good luck on that."
If the point system is based on analysis of games played without points and fine tuned as needed, why wouldn't most if not all players agree that it was an accurate representation? People wouldn't HAVE to play for points, but those who wanted to play in tournaments set up using points would know going in that that was how the tournament was set up, just as now players know that they will be playing using tournament rules. If a player objects to the way the tournament is run, s/he can always create his/her own.
2."Second, and more importantly, a win is a win. It doesn?t matter whether my opponent caps four of my pairs or none, as long as I get the five in a row (or five pairs). Also, if I resign a game, how would you score it? The only game I can think of that uses a points system to determine a champ is Div. I college football, and everyone agrees that?s a messed up system"
A win is still a win using the points system; however, using points you can evaluate the relative strenghts of the competitors more easily for the purpose of ratings and handicaps. Currently, if I thrash on a player, totally dominate the game as white it is exactly as you say, just a win. If that player barely manages to win against me as white, again a win is a win and we are now tied and have the same rank. So how do we determine who is the better player? Duplicate bridge uses points to determine winners. The point system used for college football is totally different from what I'm talking about here, so although everyone may agree that it is a totally messed up system it doesn't really affect the strength of my case one way or another. What if you resigned a game? Then,if you were playing for points you would get the number of points which you had accumulated in the game before resigning and your opponent would get his/hers. This would be incentive not to resign, because you would be playing a match, not just a game, and every point you could get might make a difference to the outcome.
3."Also, if Pente were played under a points system, we?d be less inclined to try out new lines."
This is probably true, for most players as I mentioned in my post- arguments against the system. However, my guess is that right now most players don't have much incentive to try out new lines(why risk a loss when you know how to win?), and therefore when they do most of them are following the trailblazers. If we make the game more attractive to new players (handicaping)we will have more potential trailblazers. Points might actually give incentive to explore new lines: can I find a better line where I win more quickly or capture more pairs in winning?
4."Also, if points were awarded for caps and length (shortness) of a game, would it be better to take an unnecessary cap. It would get me an extra pair (and thus more points), but make the game longer, and make me look like a weaker player."
I thought of this downside after posting, and here is how I'd resolve it. A player on the losing end of a game could prevent score padding by pointing out that the winner was trying to pad the score as soon as s/he noticed that that was occurring i.e.- you have an open three. Why didn't you make an open four this turn. The winner would be required to take the shortest line to a win once it was pointed out to him/her.

11. maj 2003, 12:48:57
Dmitri King 
Ämne: Re: Thoughts for rules changes to improve pente. Making pente with no opening move restriction a fair game.Pente for points (not exactly like the original variant)
I have a rare (for me ) concise post. I agree with everything Thad said.

Datum och tid
Vänner online
Favoritforum
Vängrupper
Dagens tips
Copyright © 2002 - 2024 Filip Rachunek, all rights reserved.
Tillbaka till sidans början