Hi Gary! Thank you for you replies and research.

A most interesting way to make your point, use my own playing stats! Hmm, I hadn't thought it was that much of a deal, but if them are the numbers you've pretty well convinced me. Especially since you've only used my tournament stats and not the side games where the games would be unequal as I go second in a lot more games in them because of running series with players as we usually play loser goes first in the next game. I'm not much for the bell curve, but I can think of it ratiowise. 89% is about 8 to 1, and 69% is about 2 to 1, so it's easy enough to see that. My Dark Chess record is 19 to 1 on IYT tournament and side games both. If I lose even one game it drops the percent a lot. Winning 10 in a row doesn't raise it at all sometimes. I guess that's because it's at the tip of the curve, eh? Whereas my Pente stats being lower a loss may not even affect a change.

I like the game on a 13 X 13 game, but you might be right about IYT ruining it for me and others. I had never even heard of Keryo Pente until I joined the site a year and a half ago. I've never had a problem with room. I can't even imagine a game filling up all the intersections and then having no more moves. Since we're all just using pretend boards on the internet, I'm surprised they haven't made an infinite board or say 100 X 100 if the players wanted too. That's one thing I really like about this site as compared to IYT, they give the players more options in setting up the games and the tournaments. I agree with you about having a standard board and rules for tournament play. I wonder why IYT doesn't seem to care about us any more? They should certainly listen to people and try to accommodate their desires if it'll improve the experience. Doing so would almost certainly help them make more money. I imagine they first started the 13 X 13 boards as a way to save computer memory and realizing that most players were casual players and wouldn't even notice the difference from the standard rules. If you and others have asked them to set up a Pro Keryo game and they've ignored you (Which I think is worse than being denied) then my liking of their site is dropping further.

I'm trying to think of a rule change for Pente that might help the player moving second to equalize his winning chances. Perhaps a second move restriction? Say, not to let the third move be placed next to the first or second move. You know, atleast one space apart from them (A King's move)? That would cut out 16 different moves for player 1. I wonder if it would make a difference though, or even tip the scales toward the guy moving second? I don't know Pente well enough to think it in my head, nor does anyone I know play the game so I can't test it out. What kind of ideas have the Pente organizations or yourself been thinking up? Is the move restriction for Keryo the same as it is for Pente? I'd like to try this version of it. Does the Pente.org have it? I bet they do. I'll check them out soon.