<Pioneer54 -

I have always heard that if a person is a dreamer and uses LONG-term thinking in order to accomplish those dreams that he will be shot down and/or ridiculed for being so stupid in the short term. My personal experiences in life have convinced me that that is true beyond a shadow of a doubt. I have been ridiculed MANY times in life for being a LONG-term thinker and for spending untold hours on what many would consider to be unimportant activities.

Here are some of the things that I have done in the PAST that have caused me GREAT consternation in the SHORT-term but GREAT rewards in the LONG-term:
1. Work 65 hours a week for 4 consecutive years.
2. Spend 100's and 1000's of hours studying a board game.
3. Spend 100's of hours studying the methods of professional gamblers.

In the future: Spend 100's and maybe 1000's of hours studying the methods of winning commodity traders.

Now: Dream so BIG that I could envision Pente and Keryo Pente being as big as Chess.

I will not spout off about what I have accomplished in life as a result of the first 3 things because I would only sound like that I was tooting my own horn. I WILL say that there IS a reason that my I.D. at www.pente.org is 'Progambler'.

Perhaps I have not done a good enough job in attempting to explain our LONG-term thinking here. Perhaps I have offended some people with my 'challenge'. If so, I apologize because no offense was intended. I was only attempting to specifically define what an invalid variant was and to get someone to find a similar example. In my defense, I can only say that I made the challenge because I continue to be shot down when I attempt to logically demonstrate my long-term thinking that was presented to Fencer.

My long-term thinking includes future World Championships being held here at Brain King. I envision numerous 'candidates matches' like they have in Chess followed by the BIGGEST of ALL World Championships. I can even envision personally putting up a sizable chunk of money for this tournament. Of course, there would be many particulars to work out about that.

All I am saying is to PLEASE look FAR out on the horizon, FAR from this short-term errorneous application of the rules that is holding players back in no-restriction Pente and Keryo Pente. There are FAR greater things that can be done if we learn from our errors in the past.

I will respond to one more point that you made:
>> Try this: Suppose a group of users here got together and (without consulting you and maybe even deliberately excluding you) convinced Fencer to eliminate the restriction on the 19 boards. My guess is you would be pretty shocked! And rightly so! <

I don't believe that would be possible at THIS site. Fencer is an excellent site owner and businessman who obviously understands long-term thinking. That's probably why he has been so successful in building such a great site in short a short time frame. I bet he ALSO has spent 100's and 1000's of hours making this site what it has become. I would also guess that he has been ridiculed from people who question the amount of time that he must spend and his dedication to his business. Personally, I have nothing but admiration for someone like that.

I don't think it could have happened because there's LITTLE way that players could have banned together and pulled the wool over his eyes. After they made the suggestion to remove the restriction, he would fairly quickly find several sites that HAVE the restriction, ONE of which has ratings that simulate the U.S. Chess formula like he does here and conclude that it should not be done.

But let's say, for the sake of argument, that these players WERE successful in getting the opening restriction removed in ALL variants of Pente and Keryo Pente. Would I be shocked? Most certainly! Would I be mad? Most certainly! But...if just ONE of those somebodies came along and made a STRONG and VALID long-term case that the game COULD become HUGE IF the restriction IS removed and that MANY masters would STILL want to play the game, THEN I would no longer be shocked or mad AT ALL! I would applaud the decision.


>> Why then, do you so utterly fail to appreciate and comprehend that there are many of us who simply believe that the restriction just is not necessary on the 13 board?

I guess because I can't understand why people cannot see the LONG-term thinking that I have presented time after time here. Let me give an example. For the sake of argument, let's say that there are currently 5,000 active and semi-active Pente and Keryo Pente players in the U.S. Based on that, there are maybe 15-20 of us who COULD play Keryo Pente good enough so that player 2 would win LESS THAN 5% of the time without restriction (it'd be 1% in Pente). By COULD, I mean given a bit of study of the game. I think that that is a fairly accurate estimate of the percentage of players who could accomplish that (less than 1/4th of 1% of all players)

Now let's think BIG and let's think LONG-term and say that in 20 years, there are 500 THOUSAND or even 5 MILLION Pente and Keryo Pente players. Now using the 5M example, there could possibly be 1,500 to 2,000 players that could effectively win as player 1 95%+ of the time without restriction. Now consider the NUMEROUS players who have CONTINUED to play WITHOUT the restriction because it was erroroneously allowed to be created at several different sites.

Our premise is that IF the erroroneous no-restriction variant had NOT been created, there would be AT LEAST double if not triple the percentage of master-level players NOW meaning maybe there would CURRENTLY be 20-50 of them instead of 10-20. BUT as the game grows, the multiplicative effect of that error manifests itself in a MUCH slower growth rate of the game, due to less creation of strategy guides and the such, so that instead of maybe initially growing at maybe 20-25% per year, it only grows 5-10% per year. So BESIDES the lower PERCENTAGE of masters, there is a lower POOL of players for those masters to come from.

THAT is the biggest problem that we have with the no-restriction games and why we are so passionate about getting things right the FIRST time so that the game can become HUGE in the future! If SOME players lose a LITTLE fun now, that will be MORE than made up for in the LONG run by the MANY MORE new players that are introduced to the game in the future as a result of publications about the game.


Gary