<Thanks to you and your other champion friends and keepers of all that's pure and standard of Pente as played on a 19 X 19 board. Why do you and Dmitri think that what you say about Pente should be taken as gospel? Yeah, you're good players. So what? If you don't see what's happened to Pente in it's 25 year history, why are you asking me if I have? It was a fad briefly and has faded away. The internet has done more to give it a new lease on life than any of these ideas of yours have done to promote it. By design or not it's a good thing IYT made the 13 X 13 board and used the original move rules too. Had they gone and made it as you guys would have it from the start I believe a lot less people would play it, nor would there be much discussion here about it or it's future. You're too close to it. Lots of trees, where is that forest? So what if I think chess is a better game? Why should that stop me from playing any game that's not chess? You don't like playing without the move restriction, so that gives you the right to make it so I can't play without it? And you're mad? Perhaps you should have been more engaging in the earlier posts and you could have anticipated some of mine and other's reaction to what you've done. Oh well. You've won this game too.

As for games involving luck. There's plenty of big tournaments involving them. Of games most people play or have heard of. Backgammon, Cribbage, Bridge to name three. Thousands of people play them regularly and daily. So there's a Pente tournament and 20 or 30 of might show up. It's news in Missouri, but I doubt if I'll find any mention of it in the Los Angeles Times. Perhaps the fact that there isn't a sponsor should clue you in to the problem. They don't see any future in it, nor do they want to put their money into it even if there's none to be made from it. I wonder why? Like I said earlier, it's too bad I'm not rich, I'd sponsor some Pente tournaments. Not enough so you'd get a professional player living off his winnings, but enough so that it might make the paper from time to time when the tour hit town. Like Bridge and Cribbage do.

You are quite mistaken in your belief that luck is not a good selling point. When there's no luck involved, the better player wins almost every time unless the game can be played perfectly then one player or the other always wins. In a game with luck, this isn't true. It usually is, but not every time. People can root for the underdog and know he might win. Hence the popularity of Poker and the almost complete obscurity of Pente. Chess is about the only game of pure skill that has such a big following. It's history among games is quite unique in a lot of ways. Even the design of the board and men is a history lesson.

My friends will stop by and ask what I'm playing on the computer. If I say Pente, I get blank looks. If I say Chess, they know what I'm playing. Go ahead, blame it on my ignorant friends if that's what you think. I've been playing games in this neighborhood for over 40 years and that's how it is. I have to search out places to play other games.
Chess is dying in a certain way. Computers will eventually play it better than people do. It's already happened to Checkers and it's going to happen to Chess. I was happy to see Kasparov play and win a game. Oh, by the way, who won the match?

Perhaps the guy that beat you 6 times in a row was using a computer? Or he just plays better than you? That's a big problem with this internet game playing. That's one reason I like Dark Chess. No kibitzers and no computer players. Just because a game doesn't have perfect information in it doesn't mean it's not a hard or challenging game to play well. Bridge is hard game to master. Dark Chess, though new, is looking like such a game too. Obvisiously there's skill in it or I'd not have such a record at it. Even Backgammon has skill, though it definitely has a lot of luck in it. The amount of luck determines how one should play the game if he wants to be successful at it. Being able to play without perfect information requires a type of judgment that Chess and Pente do not have in them. It forces one to make assumptions and take chances at times during the game. That never happens in a well played game of Chess or Pente. It's all on the board staring you in the face. In theory, it shouldn't matter who your opponent is as long as you make the best move each time. Especially games that have perfect information like Chess or Pente or Checkers. Since I have to assume every opponent can use aids or cheat at their leisure, I can't see why you get so worked up over what version of the game two of us might be playing. The games don't count in the official standings of anything and I just want to have some fun. And you don't have to play the game if you don't like how the game is played. It bears repeating since you just don't seem to get that and keep whipping out these Chess analogies about missing Rooks and now have helped eliminate one form of a game that many people enjoy and didn't ask you if they wanted to play better or serious or become leading players and champions of. Chess starts with a supposedly equally matched sides, as does Pente. Going first creates inequalties in both games. Obviously to you it's very pronounced in Pente toward the player moving first. Lots of people can't see that, or if aware of it don't care. They just want to play with simple rules and switch sides and play another game when the one they're playing is done.

Just how much study of our games are you doing? I'm easy pickings for a champion like yourself. You're on everyday and you can't make a move in our game? Especially a game that you are using to prove a point? I was hoping that one of the others in your demostration might win a game, but now it doesn't matter since Fencer has gone and made your change anyway.

I can too say this!
>> Pente will probably never be as popular as chess, nor, I dare say, even as popular as it once was. Do you deny that this is true? Sure I can't predict the future, but the past is there for all to see. Based on that and how things seem to be going, I might be pretty close to the short term future too. Say out to about 100,000 years?

I read all your posts in the places the I've replied. I even try to understnd where you and others are coming from when you type the things that you do. Not like it appears you or especially Dmitri have done towards ellieoops' earlier post or Kevin's. I may not be the best communicator of my ideas and ideals, but I don't say things I know to be false.

Chess is more popular now than ever? You are wrong about that. Maybe in shear numbers of players(U.S. population growth), but not in overall awareness or interest in the general population is that true. I have to assume that you're under thirty years old to say that. Or your memory is slipping. Bobby Fischer's match with Boris Spassky was lots bigger newswise than the Deep Blue deal is or has been. FIDE, now there's a top notch, well run organization to emulate if I ever saw one! Right. You would be better off trying the ACBL as an organization to copy. Their game is fading away, but they are taking steps to keep it going for the while and even reverse the trend. Most games need younger players coming into the game to keep steady or expand. Bridge is graying daily. Why don't you and the other players of Pente form a syndicate and buy the rights from Milton Bradley? I bet it wouldn't cost too much. Under a million bucks for sure.

You didn't think much of my theory that in the early 1980's a major part of Pente's decline was caused be video games, CD's, music videos and computers. It sounds a lot more plausable than anything else I've heard. Chess weathered the storm in part because computer programmers used it to demostrate computer programming and because it really is a good game. Though it has perfect information, the number of different moves is still beyond any reckoning and it gives each game played a sense of novelty to it. I've only played a few hundred games of Pente and Keryo Pente, but there's a lot of sameness to a lot of the games. Yes it is just appearance as I've learned from playing that a slight difference of position is completely different game, but compare the first five moves in Pente to Chess's first five moves. Still, Pente has a lot of novelty for me and there are times that I'm very surprised in how a game goes. I also like patterns made while playing. I've commented on it to some of my opponents, but I've not received much response in that area. You were the first person I seen made mention of it.

The someone that suggested the game with two five in a rows or one six in a row or longer or bag twice as many dudes was me. I came up with the idea awhile back and tried to interest IYT and have mentioned it to a couple of my opponents on IYT to see what kind of response it'd get. I believe this version would be best on the 19 X 19 board and a move restriction wouldn't be nescessary, but couldn't hurt it either. Since none of my friends play Pente, I have no way to easily play such a game. As with the 10 X 10 board. When I joined this site and found the message boards I posted it again. I believe the first time was on the tournament board before we moved things over to this section of postings.

So I say things I apparently have very little knowledge or way of proving. You do the same thing. What's the difference? You can have the soapbox when I step off of it.

And back to this post's main point. I used to have a choice as to what version of Keryo Pente to play, now I don't. You get to play the version you like on both size boards now. I'm joining this site as a paying member, but I think I will stay on at IYT too. If only to play Keryo Pente on the 13 X 13 board without the move restriction. It'll be my luck though and they'll suddenly see your way and change it there too.