To all -

This is a copy of a post that I put on the Keryo Pente discussion board with a few things changed to apply to the discussion here. I'd like to state several things.

1. I agree with what Dmitri King has said about the opening advantage being EXTREMELY high for player 1 in Pente on a 13x13 board.

2. I differ with Dmitri King and agree with Pioneer 54 that the edge of the board play in a 13x13 game is somewhat interesting. BUT...I only think it is interesting when played WITH an opening restriction.

3. As Erika alluded to on the Keryo Pente board and Dmitri King has plainly stated, it impeads the growth of players to play the games without the restriction because they are like playing 2 different games.

I would now like to state what I believe to be the EXACT reason why MANY players who learn to play EITHER Pente OR Keryo Pente without the opening restriction have GREAT difficulty a player 1 in learning to attack standard defenses by player 2 WITH it, even though player 1 still has a moderate edge. The reason is that without the restriction, player 1 can easily attack and get into a winning position by using standard 'potentials' and rarely ever having to sacrifice a pair or otherwise get into a little more confusing position. A potential is defined as two stones in a straight line, vertically, horizontally, or diagonally with one blank intersection in between, so it would be like X_X. Potentials are STRONG formations in Pente and Keryo Pente because pairs (and 3's in Keryo) can be captured. As a general rule, pairs are much weaker then potentials in both games.

With the opening restriction, player 1 must now use less strong formations in the opening that usually require the sacrifice of a pair (or even a 3 in Keryo) in order to get a good attack. For that reason, if players have learned the game without it and then attempt to play with the correct opening restriction, they usually have great difficulty learning to win as player 1 even though the first player still has a moderate advantage. It is simply uncomfortable for them to learn other attacking formations besides the standard potentials described above.

I DO think it was an EXCELLENT business decision by Filip to put Small Pente and Small Keryo Pente on the site. It will take MANY players away from IYT, which is what I like to see. If he places the opening restriction on both games, there WILL be a few isolated complaints while players get used to it. But I DO believe that over the next 1-5 years as the site grows that Pente will grow much larger faster and be a bigger contributor to that growth if the opening restriction is placed on ALL Pente games. This is because players will be MORE able to understand how to attack as White and will be better able to compete with intermediate and top level players.

The best way to put it would be using Erika's terms from the Keryo Pente board. New players who wished to learn tennis would just be learning to play tennis on a smaller court before graduating to a larger court as opposed to being shown how to play racquetball in order to learn tennis. There would be no comparison.


Gary