Thanks Tom for the cool variant and puzzles. I was about ready to give up on the puzzle when I finally realized I was not looking enough "outside of the box" of regular Pente. (Its hard to teach an old dog...:) You definitely have to think differently in this variant, it will be interesting to try a game. I will be modifying my program to play this variant so we can try it, but it may not be easy...

I encourage everyone else to try these puzzles to stretch your brain.
-Mark