<Walter -
(This is the longest one you've probably ever seen and you should probably ready EVERY bit of it and digest it ALL this time!)

Even though others may have gotten in heated debates with you in the past about this topic, as a general rule I have tried to avoid any heated discussions because, well, as a whole you usually have seemed to be a very reasonable and intelligent individual. So I have respected your right to have an opinion that is different than my own and mentally agreed to myself to just disagree with you and not really discuss the matter directly with you.

But I am seeing numerous things that you are saying in your last post that you have no business saying because well frankly, you have NO WAY to know that what you are saying is true and they are really making me mad, as follows:

>> Pente will probably never be as popular as chess, nor, I dare say, even as popular as it once was. <

You can't make a blanket statement such as this. You know VERY little about the history of the game or it's future direction. There are MANY of us that believe otherwise. Chess is a complex game and EXTREMELY difficult to learn high-level strategy. Pente is MUCH easier to learn and is only SOMEWHAT difficult to learn high-level strategy. That is why it is so popular when it is shown to kids and people who wish to play a game for 'fun'. In my opinion, you have absolutely no business making such a statement.

>> It's not as good as a game, nor as interesting. <

Now Walter, you've known me to be pretty reasonable about this whole situation. But NOW you're really starting to MAKE ME MAD!! If it's NOT as good a game nor as interesting as Chess to you, then why the H___ do you play it? Also, why do you give a ___ about what the rules are??!! My gish, play a different game!!

>> I know no one that plays Pente in any form <

Now, you're REALLY making me mad!! What does this have to do with anything? The reason why Pente and Keryo Pente aren't as popular as Chess is the REASON THAT I STATED IN MY LONG POST BEFORE!! THEY ARE NOT PROMOTED BY TOP PLAYERS BECAUSE ONE SIDE HAS TOO BIG OF AN ADVANTAGE!! They are VERY interesting games if you study them and could be hugely popular. But if you sit there and whine about how uninteresting and NEVER do what it takes to make them popular, that is by evening up the sides and promoting them to top players and then to companies, OF COURSE they WON'T be popular!! You're acting as if the game is like tic-tac-toe or tiddly-winks or WORSE a 90% LUCK game like Battleship. Can you imagine trying to get corporate sponsorship for a world-championship Battlship tournament? No, because whoever won the tournament would just be LUCKY!! THINK about what knowledge you have about something before spouting off about it!

>> If you guys haven't noticed, even chess is dying out in certain ways. <

Where the hell did this come from?? Do you have a membership list of the U.S. Chess Federation or the World Fide Chess Association and can you quote specific figures? Chess is as POPULAR or MORE so NOW than it has EVER been BECAUSE of computerized opening books, BECAUSE of outstanding training software, BECAUSE of HUGE corporate sponsership. Have you NOT seen the recent 6-game match between World Champion Gary Kasparov and Deep Fritz? What about the one from 2-3 years ago against Deep Blue? The move-by move game-scores and results of BOTH matches as they were progressing were posted on the front page of The Kansas City Star, for goodness sake and both sides took home over $250K for their efforts in the most recent match. Where do you think that money came from? It SURE didn't come from OTHER Chess players! It came from corporate sponsers!! And who do you think got those sponsers? Well it sure the heck wasn't your average Joe chessplayer! It took a large effort from FIDE that has numerous masters and higher-level Chess players high up in it's ranks! Walter, unless you have specific hard figures to quote to back up a statement, don't make blanket statements that you can't back up. The fact is that computers have made Chess MORE popular!! After all, the match was played back LIVE on the internet also!! And no, I DON'T have any specific membership figures myself, but all I have to do is look around at those activities to KNOW that it is STILL immensely popular!

>> Are you right that there's only 20 masters of Pente? I find this number quite low. As easy as it is to learn Pente, you'd think there'd be lots of real good and master players around. <

Walter, once again you are completely showing your ignorance of Pente and you also seem to VERY frequently be taking things that are said FAR too literally. Also, you are using these statements that are taken out of context as reasoning for UPCOMING statements which is VERY maddening. Here is the exact quote of what I said:

"It is THESE things that generate GREAT interest in a game! In order for ALL of these things to occur, MANY master-level players MUST play the game because MANY of these things take a HUGE amount of time and only a small percentage of even high-level players have that time. Right now in Pente, I would say that there are about 20-25 of them max."

By these statements, can you NOT see that I was using the term "master-level" as a GENERAL term? There is NO EXACT definition of a Pente 'master' like there is in Chess. To some people, there could be 200 masters, to others, there might only be 2 or 3. The fact is that up to 1-2 years ago, the game HAD started to spike up in popularity because several HIGH-level Russian, Hungarian, and Canadian players had started to play the game. Many of these players had master-level backgrounds in Chess, Gomoku, and Renju. The top Hungarian player by the name of Istvan Virag actually solved the game of Gomoku as a forced win in 24 moves for player 1 and tied me for the Email world championship, although I won on tiebreak. A top Russian player named Dmitri Krasnonosov came on to IYT 2-1/2 years ago and broke my string of 17 consecutive IYT Pro Pente titles. And THEN he proceded to make me loop like a COMPLETE pauper by beating me in 6 CONSECUTIVE TOURNIES!! I was mortified! Another top Russian player named Oleg Stepanov wrote an excellent opening database. Another top Russian player named Victor Barykin wrote a VERY good Pente-playing program. So far, it is the only one that has been able to shake a stick at Mark Mammel's excellent program. But what has happened now is that TWO of the top Russian players have quit playing the game as well as several other top players who have quit playing in the past year so the game has started to pull back in popularity because there's no new strategy guides and no one to promote it. Why? Because there's nothing left to solve! There's NO way to get any better at the game!

>> I think it should be a choice as to having a move restriction or not. Your chess analogies are quite good, but you're comparing apples to oranges. No master of chess will take me serious at regular chess just because I'm one of the best players at a variant of it. <

Now, you've got me so mad that smoke is coming out of my ears. HOW MANY TIMES TO I HAVE TO TELL YOU THAT NOT HAVING THE OPENING RESTRICTION IN PENTE IS NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT A VARIANT. YOU ARE THE ONE THAT IS COMPARING APPLES TO ORANGES!! CAN YOU NOT READ?? READ AND SOAK IN MY ENTIRE POST, NOT JUST THE PARTS THAT SUIT YOU!! PLAYING THE GAME WITHOUT THE RESTRICTION IS LIKE PLAYING CHESS WITH ONE SIDE MISSING A ROOK!! IT IS NOT A VARIANT, IT IS JUST STUPIDNESS AND THERE IS NO POINT!! If you want a 13x13 game or 9x9 game, although some top players aren't fond of it, I don't have a problem with it and it can be called a variant, just like 10x10 Reversi or whatever like that. THERE IS A HUGE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A VARIANT WITH A DIFFERENT BOARD SIZE OR DIFFERENCE PIECE MOVEMENT OR DIFFERENT RULES FOR WINNING OR WHATEVER THEN ACTUALLY REMOVING ONE OF THE PIECES OR RULES SO THAT ONE SIDE HAS AN OVERWHELMING ADVANTAGE!! I will not state that again, so quit using the argument that it is SOMEHOW a variant. It damned well is NOT!!

>> If you're right about Pente being no good even with the move restriction, why are you foisting it upon us? Now we have to play with your guys' imposed version on the 13 X 13 board that neither of you want to play on. Seems unfair and hypocritical to me. I agree with ellieoop, if you don't like the game, don't play the game. If you say the current way is flawed, why force us to play it. <

I actually had to get up and walk around when I read this I was so friggin mad. I'M JUST GOING TO LEAVE THE CAPS LOCK ON NOW. ARE YOU CHOOSING TO IGNORE ALL OF MY PAST POSTS? HOW MANY TIMES DO WE HAVE TO SAY THAT WE ARE WORKING ON DIFFERENT THINGS THAT WILL IMPROVE THE OPENING RESTRICTION AS IT CURRENTLY EXISTS IN REGULAR PENTE? I NEVER SAID IT WAS NO GOOD WITH THE CURRENT RESTRICTION NOR DID I PERSONALLY SAY THAT THE 13X13 BOARD IS BAD. SOME OTHERS DON'T LIKE THE SMALLER BOARD, BUT AS LONG AS IT HAS THE RESTRICTION, IT IS FINE WITH ME. I ONLY SAID THAT IT WAS NO GOOD WITHOUT THE RESTRICTION. I STATED THAT PLAYER 1 STILL WINS A HIGH PERCENTAGE AT THE VERY TOP RANKS IN PENTE WITH THE RESTRICTION, BUT NOT THAT IT WAS NO GOOD. THE RESTRICTION JUST NEEDS TO BE TWEEKED A BIT. DON'T YOU REMEMBER THE DISCUSSION ABOUT G-PENTE AND D-PENTE?

BUT IF YOU REALLY BELIEVE US THAT PENTE IS NO GOOD WITH THE RESTRICTION, THEN WHY THE HELL WOULD YOU WANT TO PLAY IT WITHOUT THE RESTRICTION?? BY YOUR LOGIC THERE, IT SHOULDN'T BE WORTH PLAYING THE GAME AT ALL. AS A MATTER OF FACT, YOU SHOULD THINK THAT IT IS A LUDICROUS GAME TO PLAY. AND BY THE WAY, I WILL PLAY SOME 13X13 PENTE WITH THE RESTRICTION. I AM SOMEWHAT CURIOUS TO SEE IF THE SIDES OF THE BOARD AFFECT ANY OF THE MAINLINE VARIATIONS. WALTER, I AM MUCH MORE OPEN-MINDED THEN YOU THINK!! JUST NOT ABOUT THE LACK OF A RULE THAT CAUSES ONE SIDE TO BE AT SUCH A DISADVANTAGE.

AND I'M SO SICK AND TIRED OF HEARING THE SAME OLD ARGUMENT THAT IF I DON'T LIKE THE GAME, DON'T PLAY THE GAME. WELL IF YOU DON'T LIKE REASONABLE RULES OF A GAME, THEN YOU DON'T PLAY THE GAME!! I'LL USE A SIMILAR ANALOGY THAT DMITRI KING DID. IF YOU AND SEVERAL OTHER PEOPLE HAD GOTTEN TOGETHER AND DECIDED THAT 2 + 2 = 5 AND YOU WERE DOING WHATEVER YOU COULD TO CONVINCE OTHER PEOPLE THAT YOUR WAY WAS CORRECT INSTEAD OF WHAT WE'VE BEEN TAUGHT IN SCHOOL, THEN I WOULD WANT TO INTERVENE AND ASSIST IN HELPING YOU MAKE IT CORRECT. BUT THEN YOU WOULD TELL ME TO BUTT OUT BECAUSE I DON'T HAVE TO ACCEPT THAT 2 + 2 = 5 AND THAT YOU SHOULD BE ALLOWED TO GO AROUND PROMOTING THAT INCORRECT STATEMENT. THAT IS A GOOD COMPARISON AS TO WHAT IS HAPPENING HERE! WE WILL NO LONGER SIT IDLELY BY AND ALLOW THE GAME TO BE PLAYED WITHOUT IT'S MOST IMPORTANT RULE. THE BOARD SIZE IS SMALL POTATOES COMPARED TO THE RESTRICTION. I'D RATHER PLAY ON A 9X9 BOARD WITH A RESTRICTION THAN ON A 19X19 ONE WITHOUT IT.

>> Just imagine if a group of chess masters came to this site and convinced the owners that they shouldn't have any chess variants on it for all the reasons you've given about Pente and Fencer got rid of them. I'm sure there'd be an outpouring of complaints if that happened. I fail to see how this is any different than that. Just because you're the best player in the world at one version of a game doesn't mean I should be forced to play it.

This is hardly worth responding to but I'll continue to reiterate some points that I've made above. There is NO comparison to removing the opening restriction in Pente and removing a completely different variant in Chess. I would be amazed if you cannot see that now. I would ALSO be hopping mad if some Chess masters came in and took a TRUE variant away. But I would be JUST as mad if they put a Chess game on here, removed the Rook or Queen from one side, and still called it Chess or Small Chess. It could only serve to hurt the development of the players in the game.

Walter, unless you can somehow CONVINCE EVERYONE at this site including owners, employees, top players, intermediates players , novice players , and beginning players that Pente and Keryo Pente could aquire large sponsership in the future WITHOUT ANY KIND of an opening restriction, then I would suggest that you refrain from attempting to promote a game that has incorrect rules. It is not a variant and will continue making the game languish in mediocrity for the foreseeable future!!

If you want to do something useful, then try coming up with a reasonable TRUE variant like having to get 6-in-a-row or TWO 5-in-a-rows (like someone suggested and called Double Pente earlier) to win the game. Maybe even playing the game on a 7x9 board. But in order to convince people like Fencer to implement something like that, you will need to be ready to PROVE that there is not a great chance of a draw and that both sides have a reasonably even chance of winning.


Gary