Wow. I just finished a 255 game match! Well, sort of. It looks like you can't play a match that's longer than 255 games. Our match just disappeared from the main page without any warning or message or anything after game #255. Open Pente (Thad vs. JackS)

Thad: no worries, I had to select some cutoff since nosovs had set it up as kind of a "best of" tourney. Haven't seen a whole lot of activity on the pente front lately anyway. seems like alot of the best players have stepped back and are in retirement or are otherwise too busy to consider it.


I was hoping opening it up to the masses would generate a couple of more signups above the 2150bkr but if that doesn't happen we'll just let the tournament expire. Even 6 players seems a bit light....everyone in the tournament would've preferred 10 players.

I may retry the Super Pente Tourney in 2014 with signups starting in November to and open to 2100 or above....we'll see if there's enough interest to warrant it when we get there.

On another note the st pats tournament signups will be starting on February 1, 2013, Hopefully that will see a better turnout there. Stay Tuned to this highly active message board!

Brf: Sorry, my Pente rating is 'only' 2104! ;-)

OK, since Nosovs went into retirement I have been taking on his Super Pente Tournament. This tournament has always been invite only and aimed towards the higher Ranked BKR players of the game. I have sent out many invites and only 4 players have accepted thus far. That being the case I decided to open up the tournament to ANY Brainking player that has a rating of 2150 or higher.

We only need 2 more players and the tournament will start! If you meet the BKR criteria please consider signing up for the tournament, we'd love to have you on board and get it going ASAP. thanks! -Brf


Super Pente 2013

Thad: I am one of the few that disagree with this perceived P1 advantage. I lose as P1 often enough to know that if someone REALLY wants to put in the time there is usually a way to take the game away from your P1 opponent. I also tend to win a lot of games where I'm P2 also, so implying that P1 has such a sizable advantage that a players best course of action is to quit playing pente & switch to connect6 doesn't seem quite sound to me.

to each their own I suppose. Personally I've played 'te for far too long and appreciate all the subtle nuances each years worth of playing against the best players brings to the games overall evolution....it's far from played out.

pente never gets dull to me....any game without captures is another variant of go-moku to me and that kind of strategizing where stones don't ever come off the board (allowing for unplanned significant change to the playing field) does seem dull . That's just my opinion. I'm sure connect6 can be fun, but for me....captures are a must for laying another dimension of play possiblity onto the game.

Brf: Have you ever tried Connect6? It doesn't suffer from the Player 1 advantage that Pente does. But some Pente fans won't like it because there's no capturing. I like it better than Pente.

wow seriously...the last message posted in this board was a year ago to the day by me?? and I am posting the same message for this year

oh well, for the few hardcore pente players that actually read this here's the latest!
----------------------------------------------------------
Brf's 6th Annual St. Pat's Pente Tourney

Here we are again with another yearly installment of the much anticipated "St Patricks Day Pente Tournament"

After constantly adjusting and tweaking the Tourney Settings every year to try and improve the flow and speed, last years parameter change of "10 wins match" should not have been selected. The 2011 tourney is still ongoing due to this

improper setting for a "final match with two players."

With that key learning identified, I believe we'll use the same settings as last years format but lower the 10 wins match to something more reasonable '5' seems like a decent baseline since 3 is a bit light. With this minor change,

this years St Pat's Tourney should have the best settings yet for speed while maintaining a solid challenge to all players.

This is a prize tournament with 1 year Brain Rook awarded to the winner. The section size has been set at 7 people per section with time limits set at 2 days per move with vacation allowed.....anything more and the tourney

won't finish before the 2012 St Patty's tourney.

Do you feel you have the Pente luck of the Irish? well sign up and see how far you can make it through the Rounds! On St.Patricks Day (March 17, 2012) the tourney begins!

My thanks to all of you who continue to sign up for this tournament every year! Good luck to all of you, I look forward to playing you across the board!


PAST TOURNAMENT RESULTS!
St Patty's 2011 WINNERS: Aleph?, Brf? (In Progress!)
St Patty's 2010 WINNERS: Karlw, Novatis
St Patty's 2009 WINNER: Nosovs
St Patty's 2008 WINNERS: Richard III, Nosovs
St Patty's 2007 WINNER: Brf!

Brf's St Pat's Pente Tourney 2011! Sign Up by March 17th 2011

The tradition here at Brainking goes into it's fifth consecutive year with yet another St Patricks Day Pente Tournament.

Last years format really honed in the settings that work best for this type of high level Pente tournament...and it was over in a record 6 months! So, with just a few slight mods to the tourney parameters...I believe this years tourney is really getting dialed in and has the best settings we've ever tried.

This is a prize tournament with 1 year Brain Rook awarded to the winner. The section size has been set at 7 people per section with time limits set at 2 days per move with vacation allowed.....anything more and the tourney won't finish before the 2012 St Patty's tourney.

So you have to ask yourself, do you feel you have the Pente luck of the Irish? well sign up and see how far you can make it through the Rounds! On St.Patricks Day (March 17, 2011) the tourney begins!

My thanks to all of you who continue to sign up for this tournament every year! Good luck to all of you, I look forward to playing you across the board!

UPDATE: it's 3-9-11 we're getting a great turnout with 68 people signed up already! so quit procrastinating and click on the link , you only have 8 days left to join!

PAST TOURNAMENT RESULTS!

St Patty's 2010 WINNERS: Karlw, Novatis
St Patty's 2009 WINNER: Nosovs
St Patty's 2008 WINNERS: Richard III, Nosovs
St Patty's 2007 WINNER: Brf!

January All Games over 1600

Starts Wednesday
Single game round robin. Maximum 5 per section so the most games you can add is four. 3 day time limit.

New tourney is open for enrollment: Keryo-Pente, winter 2011

game: keryo-pente, 2 games for each 2 players,
time: 3/0.12/5, no days off!
final: 4 games match,
deadline: 9/01/2011
section: up to 6 players.

Cheers!

Keryo-Pente, Autumn 2010

Keryo Pente tourney, 3 days per move with a fair final match type for 2 players: 4 games match! Last term to sing up is October 15.

Cheers!

Brf: cool man. thanks for the info... I guess I never realized that there were different teams for different variants..

Snut: different team snut. you can change teams in the fellowship on the team area and see all 4 of our teams. you as far as I know are only in "Pente" thus you can't play in this Keryo tourney unless you signed up.

this tournament is only for Keryo players actively listed on a Keryo team.

Brf: Hey Brfles... I know I am on the pente team. If that means that I'll have to play Keryo Pente if you enter the team in this tourney you've mentioned, then I want to say now that I don't want to play in this tournament. I despise Keryo Pente and absolutely DO NOT want to play it.

I'm not sure that the fact that I am on our pente team means I have to play every style of pente that you enter our team to play. I'm not sure how all that works.. I will say that Regular pente and Open Pente are the only games I really want to play (and hell, not even Open Pente that much)... Thanks for understanding Brfles... Let me know what the deal is, bro... Late.

-Snut

well it's been at least 5 years since the last Keryo tourney, but Tanein has just created a new Keryo Team Tournament. Here's the direct link. 10-09-01 Keryo Pente

SPP will have our team signing up shortly. I'd encourage all other fellowships to start getting their Keryo teams put together by the Sept 1 start date.

good luck to all Players and may the best team win!

Fellow Pente Enthusiasts!: Just a Reminder 24 hours left until 4th Annual St Pat's 'Te Tourney for 2010 begins! We currently have 42 players sign up

good luck to all entrants.....I look forward to playing you across the board! -Brf

Brf's St Pat's Pente Tourney 2010! Sign Up by March 17th 2010

The tradition here at Brainking continues with another St Patricks Day Pente Tournament. After the fiasco with last years "single elimination" tourney format, I've decided to go back to straight sets in the old section based format.

This is a prize tournament with 1 year Brain Rook awarded to the winner. The section size has been set at 7 people per section with time limits set at 2 days per move with vacation allowed.....anything more and the tourney won't finish before the 2011 St's Patty's tourney.

So you have to ask yourself, do you feel you have the Pente luck of the Irish? well sign up and see how far you can make it through the Rounds! On St.Patricks Day (March 17, 2010) the tourney begins! My thanks to all of you who continue to sign up for this tournament every year!
Good luck to all players, I look forward to playing you across the board!


PAST TOURNAMENT RESULTS!

St Patty's 2009 WINNER: (Known Soon!)
St Patty's 2008 WINNERS: Richard III, Nosovs
St Patty's 2007 WINNER: Brf!

Lisa A: good point ;-)

Lisa A: You are right Lisa. Just looking for anyone who likes pente to join my fellowship and play in our tournaments.

Brian1971: I'm curious....If you're a part of our fellowship, why start another pente fellowship and more pente tourneys there? It's cool and all, i'm just wondering.

Or are you offering more than pente games in your FS....cause it's pretty obvious that this fellowship is pente centric. heheh. :-) Anyways, good luck with your FS and all...

And remember, anyone can always ask me or Brf to start any type of tourney that you want for our fellowship. As long as it's some form of pente...

-Snut

I have started up some pente games and tournaments in my fellowship. My fellowship is Brian's 1971 pub. Please join and play in these pente games.

Pente, Autumn 2009
Keryo-Pente, Autumn 2009

Robin round with two games (switched colors) for each two players, max 6 players in section, 5 days per move. 10/10/2009!

Everyone is welcome!

chaated: Thank you, chaated. That helped.

I ended up assigning a Go-Moku project, instead, just to make it a little simpler. But I think the kids will have fun. Thad, you can enroll next year. ;)

tarcellius: Can I take your class? I'd LOVE to learn that stuff!! ;-)

tarcellius:
In a general sense, you could try to reference the AI of a chess program. The best, easiest one I've seen is Tom's Simple Chess Program that you can find at this website:
http://www.tckerrigan.com/Chess/TSCP

It follows the general need for board game AI:
1.) find legal moves (harder in pente than chess since more legal moves available for the most part) and potentially prune out terrible ones
2.) find a way to assign a score to a position
Hope that helps!

Hi pente players,

I teach a high school programming class part-time, and for an upcoming class project I am considering a pente game. The students already have a GUI framework provided for them that handles images in a grid fairly well (see http://www.horstmann.com/gridworld). In writing their game, I would like to have the students implement a simple AI to play against.

I could brush up on general turn-based strategy algorithms, and then apply them to pente to write the project demo. But frankly, I can only spend so much time on my part-time job, so I don't have the time to try several different approaches before settling on a decent one that isn't too much coding for my students to handle.

So, can anyone point me to any resources for this effort? I'm looking for outlines for existing AI algorithms that are known to work reasonably well without massive coding. Or even the source code to an AI which I can pare down for my students (Like Mark Mammel's AI). Or any other pointers.

Thanks!
tarcellius

I haven't noticed this tournament until now so heres link for others, some great games are played!
Super Pente

St Patty's 2009!

ONLY 8 DAYS LEFT TO SIGN UP!

Keeping with tradition I've got another St Patricks Day Tournament out there but I'm changing things up a bit this time.

Only 64 people will be allowed into this years tournament since it's Single Elimination with a '2 wins to advance' match format. The Single Elimination is an experiment to make things more head to head and skill centric, hopefully taking away the random advantage a player can sometimes get over another in a section. (for example: where a player times out in just one game and gives an advantage to one of two other equal players.)

I'm keeping the same time limits as last years (2 days per move with vacation allowed) since that seemed to work rather well. Cash prizes are kind of a pain for Fencer to deal with so I've decided to set the prize as one year Brain Rook (approximately 50$ US value).

So you have to ask yourself, do you feel you have the pente luck of the Irish? well sign up and see how far you can make it through the grid! On St. Patricks Day (March 17, 2009) the tourney begins! Good luck to all players, I look forward to playing you across the board!


PAST TOURNAMENT RESULTS!

St Patty's 2008 WINNERS: Richard III, Nosovs
St Patty's 2007 WINNER: Brf!

chaated: used to....haven't seen much lately though. this board is kind of buried deep in here.
-Brf

Ever?

Brf: I would if I could! I'm trying to earn a free bishop membership via Fencer's Bux.to scam... I mean offer. We'll see if I get there in time.

I had started a 32 person single elimination tourney for open pente, small pente, Pente, and Keryo pente which I opened up to all of BK. The tournament was a two wins match format with a total time of 16 days allowed for the whole game and was supposed to start November 15, 2008! SPP, All Te Games, 16 Day game, Single elimination, Rated

Since none of the tournaments had a signup of 32 players I've asked Fencer to lower the required number of players to 16! The tournament will be deleted in 24 days if 16 players do not sign up. We're really close on the "pente" tourney and about halfway there on the the other variants. Please consider signing up if you haven't done so already. Thanks! -Brf

Brf: right on brf! calling all ex-plente members to join this tourny and its variants! Looks like too much fun to pass on!

I have started a 32 person single elimination tourney for open pente, small pente, Pente, and Keryo pente. This is open to the whole world (otherwise I don't think we'd get all 32 folks. it's a two wins match format with a total time of 16 days allowed for the whole game The tourney starts November 15, 2008! here's the link Pente+, 32plr, Single elim, 2 win match,16day game

Please sign up -> 1500 ;), 10000 :D, 1600 ;) (single elimination for 8, Fisher's clock 3/0.8/15 with autopass & immediately start)
More informations about Fischer's clock on BrainKing & BrainRook

Small Keryo Pente - I need 2 players more
Open Keryo Pente - 1
&
Small Keryo Pente - 1
&
Small Keryo Pente - 1
& other games

Brf's St Patty's Day Tourney 2007 has finished! Just in Time for - Brf's St. Patty's Day Tourney 2008
I will be offering 50$ US to the winner, if you like pente please consider joining it's open to everyone! There are only 7 hours left to signup! 87 people have already joined out of the top 100 players and it looks to be a really fun tourney! Last years tourney was a bit long I felt with 3 day moves (11Months) For this years tournament, I've lowered time limit to 2 Day moves!

Good Luck to all Players entered in this years tournament, I look forward to playing you across the board. -Brf

Brf's St Patty's Day Tourney 2007 has finished! Just in Time for - Brf's St. Patty's Day Tourney 2008
I will be offering 50$ US to the winner, if you like pente please consider joining it's open to everyone! The Last day to signup is March 17th 2008. The 2007 Tourney was alot of fun but a bit long at 3 day moves (11Months) I've lowered it to 2 day moves this time! Good Luck to all entrants! Also, if you are really serious about pente consider joining the Serious Pente Players Fellowship

Good Luck to all Players, I look forward to playing you across the board. -Brf

shagglbrox: well - ive just been voting for myself from different computers.... so at least we are doing the same thing right?

Pls sign up -> 700 ;) single elimination for 8, F/C 3/0.8/15
Anty Line4 - 2
Linetris - 1
Small Pente - 1
Small Keryo Pente - 2
Open Keryo Pente - 1
Five in Line Pro - 3
Five in Line Swap - 2
Lines of Action - 1
Battleboats - 2

redfrog: That would be pretty sweet! I'm a bit disappointed though - same number of people want to see you as want to see me! And here I thought they'd have taste...

tarcellius: Fantastic Idea!!!

Are you interested in a live, across-the-board, pente tournament? A handful of players well-
connected in the online pente community are putting together a live pente tournament sometime in
2008. The orgnanizers are asking people to answer a few questions in an online poll to better
understand where and when the tournament would be the biggest success. Help us out! Visit the
following site to submit your feedback:

http://pente.homestead.com/biography.html

Sign the guestbook while you are there so we have some idea who has voted in the survey. Feel
free to browse the site while you are there (not much to it, the poll is what's important right
now) and check back later for results. Further announcements will be made here and on other sites
when details are available.

Some legwork for this tournament has already been done, and we're confident that there is
sufficient interest to have a really exciting tournament with top-level play and a gathering of
players from all over the internet. Stay tuned!

5000 :D SE for 8
AntyLine4 - I need 4 players
Linetris - 4 players
Keryo Pente - only 1
Small Keryo Pente - 2

5000 :D SE for 8

500 ;) & http://brainking.com/pl/Tournaments?trg=25975&trnst=10&u=10078 SE for 8

redfrog: LOL !!! Did they get to eat the ones they captured?