Gary,

With respect to your challenge:
I don’t think you have the right to declare the issue at hand dead just because no one comes up with a variation that meets the criteria you yourself selected.

Thad

Thad -

Here is why I have issued that challenge and why I think that I have a right to make that declaration. It is OUR premise that if a VARIANT of a game has ALL and ONLY all of those conditions, then it is an invalid variant because it hurts the mainstream game in the LONG-run. (Notice I say LONG-run)

So if anyone can find ANY mainstream game where a variant exists that is SO similar to the original game yet has such a negative impact on the ability of one side to win, then we will admit that a game can become popular even though it has what we would consider to be a 'detrimental' variant. If not, I don't see how a case can be made otherwise.

Any other variant that doesn't negatively impact the ability of one side or the other to win in Pente or Keryo Pente is OK (and doesn't allow for many draws). Board size change within reason? No problem. No win on captures? No problem. Win on only ONE capture? BIG problem! One side or the other would EASILY be found to have a WINNING advantage. Win on 6 instead of 5 captures? No problem. Must get 2 Pente's to win? No problem (and pretty cool!). 5x5 board? BIG problem! Game is virtually always drawn.

Can you see the point here? The issue is that no-restriction Pente is NOT a variant, it is a LONG-term detrimental application of the incorrect rules of the game because one side has been proven to have a winning advantage.

The fact that player 1 ALSO has an advantage in Pente WITH the restriction does NOT make the version WITHOUT restriction valid. It only make it MORE INVALID.

There will be a meeting of the World Pente Federation at the tournament in Oklahoma City on May 17th. In that meeting, we will discuss possibilities for new opening restrictions for the game. The swap variation may turn out to be the best one.

I will let everyone know what comes out of that.


Gary

Gary makes a good point. NOT EVERY VARIANT of pente is a LEGITIMATE one! Everyone seems to think that just calling something a variant makes it so. Well, if that were the case, there would be thousands of variants of each game, with no rhyme or reason. There should be a good reason to have a variant, other than "It is fun". One could say "It is fun" about ANY variant, no matter how bad it is.

Gary,

You said:
It is OUR premise that if a VARIANT of a game has ALL and ONLY all of those conditions, then it is an invalid variant because it hurts the mainstream game in the LONG-run.

Ok, well it’s MY premise that one game is a variant of another if it’s rules can be explained more easily by describing the differences between it and the main game, than explaining explaining the rules of that game would be. For example, I can say that fun-pente (as I have called it in previous posts) is ‘official’ pente without the move restriction. I can say that much more easily than I can lay out all the rules for fun-pente. As far as I’m concerned, it’s a variant. Keyro13 is Keyro Pente played on a 13x13 board. That’s much easier to say than to state all the rules for Keyro13 directly. It’s a variant.

Now, with my premise, there is no issue of games being valid or not. I mean, one could play just about anything they want. Pente-on-a-5x5 board? Go ahead. I’m not gonna play, but if you want to, be my guest! Pente-where-more-than-five-in-a-row-doesn’t-win, pente-with-unlimited-captures, pente-where-you-can’t-win-diagonally? All good! Have a blast. How about this one, checkers with shot glasses, when you make a jump, drink your opponent’s shot, when you make a king, add an olive (yes, I stole that from M*A*S*H). I LIKE that variant!! My point here is that I can make up any game I want and no one can tell me it is or isn’t a valid game.

Furthermore, my premise doesn’t take into account anything about the original game. AND IT SHOULDN’T! Whether or not a variant has some kind of impact on the game it was derived from doesn’t validate or invalidate the variant!


Also you said:
Any other variant that doesn't negatively impact the ability of one side or the other to win in Pente or Keryo Pente is OK.

Ok by whom? You? Me? Us? Them? God?

Why can’t a variant ‘negatively impact the ability of one side or the other to win’? And if it can’t how can you allow both Pente and Keyro Pente. Surely in one variation, player 1 has a bigger advantage than in the other and therefore must go. Or are you saying that we can create variations of pente so long as player 1’s advantage is no greater than it is with the current ‘official’ rules? Well, who said the current amount of advantage is the correct amount not to be exceeded anyway?

Thad