http://www.renju.ee/wc/

In Japan the points (other then center) are show the place for handicup stones.
In ancient Japan during playing Ninuki (Pente) more stronger player gave handicup.
If you win three games in a Row , then you have play with this player only as second.
If then you also win three games in a row , he get possibility to put one more additional stone at the board but only in points specially marked at the board.
And so on till 4-5 stones handicup.
Each stone of handicup means the rank difference.
Alexander

I mean Top players competitions like World Championship or Finals of the Tournaments, other competitions it is possible to use it or not , it is not important, because strong players can win against middle class players as second number, too. To use or not to use openning is choice of player, so it depends on his tacktick and we can not decide is it fair or not. There a lot of stupid opennings moves which just lose , why we will discuss is it fair or not to play it against your opponent ?
Regards Alexander

Thad
It is easy if you resign you got surely 0 points.
If you fight and you can make your own five just after your opponent you got 1 point.
And it will influence in the Tournament how you lose your (second games). Some players will lose it with O points , but some other can get 1 point instead zero.
So , if you can win with 3 points as Black and lose with 1 point as White it means that you are better then your opponent.
Regards Alexander

I would like to suggest to discuss new Rule for Pente, I think it improve the game.
If you win as White (second player) you got 3 points.
If you win as Black (first Player) and your opponent can not make 5 next move or capture 5 capture you get also 3 points and your opponent got o points, but if you win and your opponet can do this , this case you got 2 points and your opponent got 1 point.
What do you think about this ?

Yes, it is interesting to know but it is far from Moscow and Pente. May be other are not interesting this theme.

Really it were old Japanese games Pente name was Ninuki-Renju. Go-moku have sport variant Renju.
You can see my page at http://nosovsky.narod.ru
USA only simplified rules of Ninuki and so we have this variant of Pente.