Hi Gary. I'm curious about the advantage or disadvantage of going first in Keryo Pente. This game seems a lot more fair than regular Pente. I think it might have something to do with the way the dudes are captured. As you've said you're a top Pente player, I am wondering how the wins and losses break down amongst the real good players depending on who starts first in Keryo Pente.
I agree with the playing of two games, one of each color being a better method than arbitrarily asigning sides. What is the "Sonneborn-Berger method"? Why break ties when you can just play a tie breaker game or two more? Or have both players advance as they do on It's Your Turn?

Walter, the advantage of moving first is significant in keryo pente, in my opinion. The opening restrictions help level the field, but not by much. At Dweebo's stone games I am undefeated as player 1 (14-0) and I am 12-4 as player 2. I find it difficult to win as player 2, and I was never in danger of losing as player 1.

12-4 and you say you find it difficult to win? Hmm, I'm confused. If you're a member of It's Your Turn Dmitri King, I'll play you some games. You can go first in them if you'd like and we'll put your theory to test. :) If you win them all, I'll see your point, but even if I take a few of them I'll ask you some questions about how it goes while we play.

<Walter -

I want to answer some of your questions from a prior post.

>> I'm curious about the advantage or disadvantage of going first in Keryo Pente. This game seems a lot more fair than regular Pente. I think it might have something to do with the way the dudes are captured. <

See my last post on that. Without the opening restriction, it's more fair than Pente because the defending player has more defensive choices. But the difference in the advantage is VERY little once you study both games in depth.

You can think of it from a mathematical perspective. If one player has more stones on the board to start any game where he must get X n a row of them to win, then by proof he has to have an advantage almost regardless of the rules with one MAJOR exception. That is UNLESS he is forced to spread them apart more than his opponent! The captures do little to reduce this advantage, because if you are always the one placing that extra stone on the board at all times, you have a greater chance of being able to capture 2 (or 3) of your opponents stones before he does yours.

>> I am wondering how the wins and losses break down amongst the real good players depending on who starts first in Keryo Pente. <

Keryo Pente is not a mainstream game yet. Few top players have studied it so there is little imperical data on it, but let me relate the advantage enjoyed by player 1 in Pente even WITH the opening restriction to you. As you read this, keep in mind that the advantage for player 1 is only SLIGHTLY reduced in Keryo Pente vs. Pente. Here's some recent stats on Pente:

The 2001-02 World E-mail Pente championship just completed. This was played WITH the opening restriction. The top 4 finishers in the 8-player championship were myself, Istvan Virag, Alexander Nosovsky, and Scott Justice. Everyone played the other 7 players one game of each color so 14 games total. Amongst those top 4 finishers, player 1 won 11 out of 12 games! That's ELEVEN of TWELVE, 91.7%!! This is WITH the opening restriction!! If you included the 7 players who completed their matches, the percentage was over 75%!

Keeping all of that in mind and that the advantage for player 1 is only slightly reduced for player 1 in Keryo Pente vs. Pente regardless of whether it's with or without the opening restriction, it's not even worth considering playing Keryo without the opening restriction if the players have done any significant studying of the game.

Based on this, there are some new rules in Pente that will eventually be coming through to further reduce the advantage enjoyed by player 1 even with the current opening restriction. (Don't worry, it won't replace the game with the current opening restriction. It would be a Pente variant.)

>> What is the "Sonneborn-Berger method"? Why break ties when you can just play a tie breaker game or two more? Or have both players advance as they do on It's Your Turn?

I want to dispell the notion that what they do at IYT is normal. MUCH of it is just plain wrong! That includes constantly ignoring player's requests for improvements, having the incorrect board size and rules for Pente and Keryo Pente to start with, and not having ratings so that they can have sectional tournaments. I also think that not attempting to break a tie is not very smart because the tourneys last MUCH longer than they need to.

The Sonneborn-Berger method simply adds up the total # of wins of all of your opponents that you defeated in the tourney. If you defeated someone twice, you multiply his wins by 2 for totalling up your opponent's wins. It's as simple as that. Excellent method for tiebreak. Its theory is that you get more credit for beating stronger players than you do lesser players that you might not be playing as hard against.

This method does not break all ties, just some of them. But some is better than none and it can do a lot to reduce the amount of time it takes to complete a tourney.


Gary