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?

Im watching Big Brother After dark on Showtime - They are Playing PENTE - with M&M's!!!!!! YEAH!!!!!!!! GO PENTE!!!!!!

Nickel: haha Yeah, Fstop is hard to stop. Now we need to worry about aaru.

Fencer, every section's winner in this tournament is determined:
Brf's St. Patrick's Day Pente Tournament
Can you please start the next round. It is very frustrating to pawns (and everyone else too) to be stuck in a tournament that could be progressing, but is not.

Ladies and Gents - It seems the next evolution of f/s team play is upon us. I have created a new f/s Plente's Evil Twin Brother - the purpose being to increase team challenge opportunity. Any Plente member interested in frequent play may participate. Once enough members have joined (at least 8) then we will split the teams fairly - a minimum of 4 on the Twin Team - and 4 on Plente's team - maybe much more and much bigger!!

Im posting this here - not as an effort to take members away from existing teams - when it comes to team tournaments from fencer - i would fully expect that players will leave and go back to their home to play.... the bonus is - you can leave a team - and finish those matches - and rejoin your own and still play....

you could even join up - get started - and leave to go back and participate in your own f/s team challenges - its impossible to be on two teams at the same time - so we never have to worry about playing ourselves!!! lol

Anyone interested send me an request to join....

Plente's Evil Twin Brother
Plente o' Pente

Brf: the 30 day countdown to my tournament Brf's St. Patrick's Day Pente Tournament
has begun. We have 56 players signed up so far and I'd love to see more. If you haven't done so and have been thinking about it please sign up. We currently have over 56 people signed up as of now and I'd love to see this grow to a hundred or more. Don't be shy, I'd love to see you across the board. -Brf

Brf's St. Patrick's Day Pente Tournament

I will be offering 50$ US to the winner, if you like pente please consider joining it's open to everyone! Last day to signup is March 16th 2007! Good luck to all Entrants! (and if you are really serious about pente) go ahead and join the serious pente players fellowship Serious Pente Players

-Brf

Brf is now the big boss of my fellowship. I will be back one day, but it's going to be a long while.

Regards,
-Snut

Pls sign up Pente-pro by aaru

karlw: karlw: sounds interesting. I'm not really happy with the pay-for-ratings system here. thanks.

Hello, everybody, my name is Karl and I'm hosting a pente tournament at pente.org. The only requirements for signing up are you have to have an established rating, which is achieved by playing 20 rated games. Those of you interested in finding out more, go to http://pente.org/gameServer/tournaments/. Hope to see you there!

karlw

I'm a new member still poking around when I have extra time. Just found this discussion board, and through it the whole "team pente" thing. Sounds like fun! In fact, the idea of joining one of these fellowships is my motivation to upgrade my membership now rather than waiting.

After I do that, if anyone can use me on a team I'm happy to join. I trust I will figure out the confusion of these "fellowships" in due time. I swear I'm a decent pente player even though I have no ranking here.

There are only three days left to sign up for the team Pente tournament. I would like to see a few more teams join in. If you're an individual looking for a team, or a captain looking for one or two more players, post here. Good luck to all.

HI.  We are currently looking for players for our Pente Team.  Please join GuineaPig´s Club and then our Pente team if you're interested. 

Thank you in advance.

Richard III:
Sorry for the slow response :0
but D-pente was suggested by Don Banks of Canada. Gary suggested G-pente (see where D and G come from :) G-pente simply increases the restriction on P1's second move -- that move may NOT be to N10, K7, G10, or K12. I like D-pente much better because it has much greater opening possibilities.
-Mark

Hey all - if you are interested in some quality pente playin.... check out Plente o' Pente

We have recently refocused on learning and just having fun - there will be tournys posted for a variety of skill levels - plus learning tournys that are unrated.... all are welcome....

pentejr: I am captain of the team, once again. Since my membership expired, I was automatically booted. The smack talking is cracking me way up. It's getting close to time for SPP team to whoop some ass.

jayhawklov: Sounds like an even match to me. 8 of yours vs. 5 of ours.

In all seriousness, though, hawk: say what you need to say to get the Snut-man back where he belongs--on our team!

Thad: Well said buddy!

redfrog: Bring it, then let us worry about that.

Thad: looks like you dont have enough players to bring it!!!

Hey Snut are you playing on your own team or what Im about to challenge the Un Serious pente team to a match but 5 players against our 6 , 7 or 8 is not much of a match *Get it together old bud

Richard III: I haven't seen Gary on this site (or any sites) for a long long time dude. I'd be surprised if he even read your post...

Has anyone seen him around? Anywhere?

Plente o' Pente's Keryo team is ready for any and all challengers.

Richard III:

Thanks for the game idea Gary. Does this mean you'll come play me at dweebo's soon? Take me down Gary PUUUULEEEEZZZZE!

pentejr:

Yes, player one sets up the 1st 4 stones (2 of each color) then player 2 gets to chose which side to play. The rest of the game is pente. The point is that if player one sets it up right player 2 will have a real difficult time determining which side has an advantage, making the game play from that position very interesting. the shapes of the 1st 4 stones and the resulting game can be extremely varied.

Richard III: Doesn't D-pente involve the option for position-swapping at some point? That does eliminate the P1 advantage, but to me, it changes the essence of the game. If there is one (or more than one) option to swap colors, then the game becomes psychological, a kind of poker-like game where the object is to trick your opponent into taking the weaker positoin. I can understand why Gary might like a game like that (he plays more than a bit of poker, I believe, as well as pente), but that doesn't look like pente anymore to me.

Thad: Ok, that makes sense, although once you introduce the possibility of a draw, it seems that the proposition hinges on a certain definition of "optimal." For instance, in chess, would it be optimal to play a move that assures you of a draw, or would it be optimal to play a move that risks losing for a chance at winning, depending on what your opponent does? Obviously, if we assume both sides are playing optimally, then you take the draw because an optimal play against your move will make you lose, if there is a chance you can. But people don't play optimally.

But you're talking theory, and I'm talking practice. Point taken.

But wouldn't a drawable version of pente be harder to master (to memorize optimal play) than a non-drawable version? I imagine (but am only guessing, having not done the analysis myself) that this slight rule change would cause most of the major lines to be re-analyzed, as the optimal play of even the most basic openings (wedge, for example) leads to very close games, if both sides play them optimally.

Gary Barnes' solution was D-pente. I tend to like that setup for deflating P1's advantage, even though i don't play it that much.

pentejr: What I meant was that any game like this suffers the fate of having it's outcome unchangable under optimal play. Chess is the same way, except that the game is believed to always be a draw if both sides always make the best move.

Thad: No. Any skill game that has the possibility of a draw does not have this problem because there are ways for P2 to play for the draw as a last resort, which causes P1 to have to take chances, which makes the game winnable for either side. Every time this comes up, I tell whoever will listen that all that needs to be done to fix the P1 advantage at the highest levels of pente is to give both sides the same number of moves. If P2 can pente or take the 5th pair on the move immediately following P1 doing so, then the game would be a draw.

There are other ways of fixing the problem too (different ways of swapping colors early in the game, etc.), but these modifications have always seemed to me to change the essence of the game more than is necessary. As long as there is no way to draw in Pente, the game will be busted, inherently flawed in favor of P1. And that's a shame.

Its always fun finding new moves that no one has played at dweebos but addiction is addiction.

Don't get me wrong. Pente is a wonderfully fun game. I am as addicted as anyone has ever been, or i would never have played it as much as i have.

maybe i need a 12 step program.

Richard III: It's only a problem at the highest levels. Every strategy game (that doesn't employ and dice, concealed pieces, etc.) suffers the same fate.

redfrog: No, I enjoy turn based pente. It’s just that when both players have the skills and spend enough energy they could play a 2 game match forever winning as P1. Alex Nosovski and I faced this problem together in a recent tour at iyt where we went 9 rounds before one of us prevailed. It’s just too easy to win as P1.

Richard III: so really its a flawed game .... we should all quit playing.... at least as P2...wait....ummmmm - or just play speed....lol

redfrog: real-time is the only real challenge. P2 has such a disadvantage that in turn based no one should ever lose as P1 if they spend the exorbitant time they have available with their moves to play the best available option. No one ever spends that much time, I know I don’t, so it remains possible for P2 to win. All p2 ever really has is tricks, traps, smoke, and mirrors, if P1 can avoid those P1 will win every time.

rednaz23: i started playing there recently for the speed pente option... it seems like most people there know eachother and have a good time... i didnt have any issues with the experience and have gone back several times since when im all caught up here.... its great for live play when you really need a fix....

rednaz23: Well, DSG is certainly no worse than it used to be! I don't go there much because I live in a different time zone than most players there. I think there was a slight revival in Pente (and most board games) when the internet became a household item. Perhaps interest in board games has waned again. Just my 2 cents.

cosmicdom: Hey hey....It's never wrong to be on the winning team! haha.

Snut: LOL Figures! You are on the wrong team Snutter!!!!

Fstop: Thad, I'm playing fstop a set right now, and though it's early in both games, I can already predict he will be swept....For smack talking my team mate!!!! Hell yeah!