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.
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: 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