This message board is definitely seen better days. Sure I'll mention the obligatory yearly Brfs 12th Annual St. Pat's Pente Tourney

Though for the most part, I doubt anyone will come here and check it. I've ran the Serious Pente Players Fellowship for 12 years with ever declining participation. I think this is partly due to fencer's implementation of higher than pawn membership levels to really access it, and also because of unsurity of brainkings support and future. I mean who wants to pay for membership when the disclaimers on the membership page clearly spell out your risks for doing so?

I also think Pente.org has taken over as the premier place to really play Pente online. Rightly so, rainwolf has put a lot of time and effort and really vamped the site. Options for how you can play pente there as well as interact with other players are levels above the model used here. Besides in it's own way, Pente.org is already a fellowship. The "pawns" or I should say "non-paying members" can access almost everything which facilitates participation and a community environment. The forums there are also much better for Pente players and much more active.

It's kind of a sad day for Pente at Brainking really, but I'm just stating what every other pente player here already knows, this place has been dieing a slow death and I don't see it recovering. This years St Patricks Day Pente tournament will likely be my last (the ever decreasing interest and low sign ups can easily be seen over time).

Support in the SPP fellowship will also likely go to minimal status since hardly any player on the roster even logs in or interacts there anymore. I don't see the point of trying to put out monthly tournaments, updating news sections, putting out polls, when I see many tournaments with not enough players just expire ...not to mention the greatly lessoned BK pente community presence.

It's been a good ride! from 2002-2014 I'd say this website was the place to play pente. I will still log on here periodically and do minimal support within SPP, but my Pente presence will be most prevalent at Pente.org, as I'm sure most of the other Serious Pente Players have already done.

Had to toss this out here since I seem to be the only poster these days, and this message board is hurtin for updates!

Brfs 11th Annual St. Pat's Pente Tourney

THERE'S ONLY 20 HOURS LEFT TO SIGN UP!

I don't know how much longer we can do this with the uncertainty of brainking's future but I'm going ahead and doing it for 2017 while we can. I've only allowed a tight 48 hour signup window for this "11th annual" so whomever signs up by midnight 3/17/17 will be able to participate. please join in for one more installment of the "Brfs St Patricks Day Pente Tournament"

This years St Pat's Tourney has the best settings based on 10 years of tweaks for speed while ensuring a solid challenge to all players.

As usual this is a prize tournament with 1 year Brain Rook awarded to the winner. The section size has been set at 6 people per section, so pawns will need to have 10 open game slots at start time (or risk being auto-removed)! Time limits are set at 1 day 9hrs per move with vacation allowed.....anything more and we risk whatever uncertainty the websites future may have. I don't want that, and ideally I'd like the winner to be able to use the prize.

With the use of a tight 48hr signup window, we should get a relatively small tournament this year which also should help speed things along.

My thanks to all of you who continue to sign up for this tournament every year, I can't believe we're already on the 11th one! Do you feel you have the Pente luck of the Irish this year? well sign up and see how far you can battle your way through the grids! On St.Patricks Day (March 17, 2017) the tourney begins!

Good luck to all players!


PAST TOURNAMENT RESULTS!
St Patty's 2017 WINNER: ????
St Patty's 2016 WINNER: Brf!
St Patty's 2015 WINNER: be_water
St Patty's 2014 WINNER: Aleph
St Patty's 2013 WINNERS: Aleph, Spavacz, RichardIII
St Patty's 2012 WINNERS: Brf!
St Patty's 2011 WINNERS: Brf!
St Patty's 2010 WINNERS: Karlw, Novatis
St Patty's 2009 WINNER: Nosovs
St Patty's 2008 WINNERS: Richard III, Nosovs
St Patty's 2007 WINNER: Brf!

Brfs 10th Annual St. Pat's Pente Tourney There are only 21 days left from today to signup!
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I'm going now on a decade of hosting this challenging pente tournament here at Brainking! please join in for another yearly installment of the "Brfs St Patricks Day Pente Tournament"

Continuing the trend of a 2 player finish, last years tournament is close to wrapping up with Spavacz and be_water battling it out in the final round. ...the 4 wins match will still be the setting on a final round (if a 2 player - Round 3 happens again). This setting helps to ensure the tournament completes in a timely fashion.

This years St Pat's Tourney has the best settings based on 9 years of tweaks for speed while ensuring a solid challenge to all players.

As usual this is a prize tournament with 1 year Brain Rook awarded to the winner. The section size has been set at 6 people per section, so pawns will need to have 10 open game slots at start time (or risk being auto-removed)! Time limits are set at 2 days per move with vacation allowed.....anything more and the tourney won't finish before the 2017 St Patty's tourney.

Please keep in mind we've had quite the issue in years past of people using alternate accts (which messes with seeding) and not fessing up about it. Based on the results of THIS POLL, I'm going to be asking all such accounts (without an established Pente BKR) to let me know if this is a legit 'unrated' account or "other". If you fit into this category and I don't receive a Private Message explaining your acct situation before the tourney start time, I will remove the acct from the tournament. I'm sorry to have to do this, but please read the message boards of prior tourney's and you'll understand the debacle I'm trying to prevent.

It's almost here! Do you feel you have the Pente luck of the Irish? well sign up and see how far you can battle your way through the grids! On St.Patricks Day (March 17, 2016) the tourney begins!


My thanks to all of you who continue to sign up for this tournament every year! I can't believe we're on the 10th one! Good luck to all players, I look forward to playing you across the board!


PAST TOURNAMENT RESULTS!
St Patty's 2016 WINNER: ????
St Patty's 2015 WINNER: Known Soon!
St Patty's 2014 WINNER: Aleph
St Patty's 2013 WINNERS: Aleph, Spavacz, RichardIII
St Patty's 2012 WINNERS: Brf!
St Patty's 2011 WINNERS: Brf!
St Patty's 2010 WINNERS: Karlw, Novatis
St Patty's 2009 WINNER: Nosovs
St Patty's 2008 WINNERS: Richard III, Nosovs
St Patty's 2007 WINNER: Brf!

It seems like I'm the only one that writes anything in this message board anymore. Regardless, Here we go with another yearly installment of the
Brf's 9th Annual St. Pat's Pente Tourney sign up now!

Last year was a speedy tournament with Aleph and Spavacz battling out a fast Round 3 with Aleph just edging out Spav to take the win. With that behind us, we're back once again to a clean tourney slate. Noticing a trend of a 2 player finish, If this year by chance we see a final round with only 2 players, the setting will continue to be a 4 wins match so as to try and have the tournament complete in a timely fashion.

This years St Pat's Tourney has the best settings based on 8 years of tweaks for speed while ensuring a solid challenge to all players.

As usual this is a prize tournament with 1 year Brain Rook awarded to the winner. The section size has been set at 7 people per section with time limits set at 2 days per move with vacation allowed.....anything more and the tourney won't finish before the 2016 St Patty's tourney.

Though last year went really well, please keep in mind we've had quite the issue in years past of people using alternate accts (which messes with seeding) and not fessing up about it. Based on the results of THIS POLL, I'm going to be asking all such accounts (without an established Pente BKR) to let me know if this is a legit 'unrated' account or "other". If you fit into this category and I don't receive a Private Message explaining your acct situation before the tourney start time, I will remove the acct from the tournament. I'm sorry to have to do this, but please read the message boards of prior tourney's and you'll understand the debacle I'm trying to prevent.

It's almost here! Do you feel you have the Pente luck of the Irish? well sign up and see how far you can battle your way through the grids! On St.Patricks Day (March 17, 2015) the tourney begins!


My thanks to all of you who continue to sign up for this tournament every year! Good luck to all of you, I look forward to playing you across the board!


PAST TOURNAMENT RESULTS!
St Patty's 2015 WINNER: ????
St Patty's 2014 WINNER: Aleph
St Patty's 2013 WINNERS: Aleph, Spavacz, RichardIII
St Patty's 2012 WINNERS: Brf!
St Patty's 2011 WINNERS: Brf!
St Patty's 2010 WINNERS: Karlw, Novatis
St Patty's 2009 WINNER: Nosovs
St Patty's 2008 WINNERS: Richard III, Nosovs
St Patty's 2007 WINNER: Brf!

January 2015 KOTH Pente, 2 day moves! (Sign up Now )

(NOTE: the original tournament slated to start on Jan 17 was flawed and started with only 1 game for 2 players. I had Fencer delete this tournament since it was not fixable. Let's try this one more time!)

SO, if you were signed up before you'll need to RE-sign up in this new tournament! I apologize for the hassle but something went haywire with the tournament settings and I know none of us wanted to play anything short of a complete "SET" so this is now fixed.

For the first 7 instances of this King Of The Hill tournament, I've only hosted it within the SPP fellowship. The last KOTH however I decided to open it up to the rest of BK so we could try and get all 20 slots filled up. This worked fairly well so I think I'll follow the same plan for this 9th version of the tournament.

The 9th KOTH will start on January 21 and will have a 2 day 1 hour move time limit with vacation allowed.

Please also keep in mind that up to 19 other players can sign up, this may equal a total of up to 38 games you may be playing on January 21! (MINIMUM of 14 Players required to start!) If you do not have enough open game slots for your membership level it is very likely you'll be auto-removed from the tournament at the start time.

Now is your chance to be the 2015 "King Of The Hill"! Remember though, only 20 people will be allowed to play in one BIG section. If you have any additional questions, feel free to PM me Brf message link. though you may want to sign up now just to make sure that you get one of the twenty available slots. Once all slots are gone the tourney is FULL, and you'll have to wait for next years KOTH to get in on the action!

Aside from enjoying the view from the top of the hill, whomever wins this tournament will have their name permanently added to the other fine champions listed below and on the main page in the SPP fellowship. Good luck to all players, it's going to be another fun tourney!

1st KOTH (6-08-2008) KOTH Champ - Jozso
2nd KOTH (9-26-2008) KOTH Champ - Dein
3rd KOTH (1-22-2009) KOTH Champ - Brf
4th KOTH (10-7-2009) KOTH Champ - Brf
5th KOTH (10-1-2010) KOTH Champ - Nosovs
6th KOTH (10-21-2011) KOTH Champs - S3v3n, Dein, Brf
7th KOTH (10-1-2012) KOTH Champ - Aleph
8th KOTH (10-3-2013) KOTH Champ - Brf
9th KOTH (1-21-2015) KOTH Champ - ????

Brf's 8th Annual St. Pat's Pente Tourney

for those interested I just posted the tournament, it's set to start March 17, 2014. Please consider signing up, I look forward to playing you across the grid.

Jan 1 2014 Pente Tourney for 6month Rook!

I normally do these things just for the folks in the SPP fellowship but this time I've opened this up BK wide!

this Tourney does have a fischers clock since I want it to be over before The 8th Annual St Pats Tourney which will start in March but the time limits should be pretty doable.

5 day start time with 8 hour bonuses for each move with a max time accumulated of 10days. 5 player sections also btw!

I know someone wants this 6 month Rook prize so Good luck to everyone that signs up, and may the pente gods be on your side!

Thad: well with the java exploits and staying up on that, coupled with getting the forums hacked. as well as day to day server crashes, database corruption, making\restoring backups. continual coding requirements to add features such as you suggested "more games" I know he didn't have time for it.

I think he's more focused on that BabyESP app he developed and unlike the pente site it actually generates revenue. It is a sad day that there is no more DSG though, I wish someone would've taken it over just to keep the forums, dbase, and the live play aspect still alive.

Thad: Not surprised really with the way things were going on the day to day running of the site. It's too bad Peter had to shut it down but I understand not having the time he once had to manage it all. DSG will be missed!

okjb: you should've been a participant in that tournament, I know I sent you a message about it but you might not have seen it in time. Shoot for it next year

yeah I've done the fill board before with snut and dmitriking trying to draw and it does work when all the spaces are filled up in the correct sequence. realistically though you have to design it like you said since more than likely you'll never fill the board without captures occurring especially towards the end.

In regular pente it's rare to see a board with 30 moves still being played though. most games are decided in under 20 :)

cool board aaru :)

Thad: no worries, I had to select some cutoff since nosovs had set it up as kind of a "best of" tourney. Haven't seen a whole lot of activity on the pente front lately anyway. seems like alot of the best players have stepped back and are in retirement or are otherwise too busy to consider it.


I was hoping opening it up to the masses would generate a couple of more signups above the 2150bkr but if that doesn't happen we'll just let the tournament expire. Even 6 players seems a bit light....everyone in the tournament would've preferred 10 players.

I may retry the Super Pente Tourney in 2014 with signups starting in November to and open to 2100 or above....we'll see if there's enough interest to warrant it when we get there.

On another note the st pats tournament signups will be starting on February 1, 2013, Hopefully that will see a better turnout there. Stay Tuned to this highly active message board!

OK, since Nosovs went into retirement I have been taking on his Super Pente Tournament. This tournament has always been invite only and aimed towards the higher Ranked BKR players of the game. I have sent out many invites and only 4 players have accepted thus far. That being the case I decided to open up the tournament to ANY Brainking player that has a rating of 2150 or higher.

We only need 2 more players and the tournament will start! If you meet the BKR criteria please consider signing up for the tournament, we'd love to have you on board and get it going ASAP. thanks! -Brf


Super Pente 2013

Thad: I am one of the few that disagree with this perceived P1 advantage. I lose as P1 often enough to know that if someone REALLY wants to put in the time there is usually a way to take the game away from your P1 opponent. I also tend to win a lot of games where I'm P2 also, so implying that P1 has such a sizable advantage that a players best course of action is to quit playing pente & switch to connect6 doesn't seem quite sound to me.

to each their own I suppose. Personally I've played 'te for far too long and appreciate all the subtle nuances each years worth of playing against the best players brings to the games overall evolution....it's far from played out.

pente never gets dull to me....any game without captures is another variant of go-moku to me and that kind of strategizing where stones don't ever come off the board (allowing for unplanned significant change to the playing field) does seem dull . That's just my opinion. I'm sure connect6 can be fun, but for me....captures are a must for laying another dimension of play possiblity onto the game.

wow seriously...the last message posted in this board was a year ago to the day by me?? and I am posting the same message for this year

oh well, for the few hardcore pente players that actually read this here's the latest!
----------------------------------------------------------
Brf's 6th Annual St. Pat's Pente Tourney

Here we are again with another yearly installment of the much anticipated "St Patricks Day Pente Tournament"

After constantly adjusting and tweaking the Tourney Settings every year to try and improve the flow and speed, last years parameter change of "10 wins match" should not have been selected. The 2011 tourney is still ongoing due to this

improper setting for a "final match with two players."

With that key learning identified, I believe we'll use the same settings as last years format but lower the 10 wins match to something more reasonable '5' seems like a decent baseline since 3 is a bit light. With this minor change,

this years St Pat's Tourney should have the best settings yet for speed while maintaining a solid challenge to all players.

This is a prize tournament with 1 year Brain Rook awarded to the winner. The section size has been set at 7 people per section with time limits set at 2 days per move with vacation allowed.....anything more and the tourney

won't finish before the 2012 St Patty's tourney.

Do you feel you have the Pente luck of the Irish? well sign up and see how far you can make it through the Rounds! On St.Patricks Day (March 17, 2012) the tourney begins!

My thanks to all of you who continue to sign up for this tournament every year! Good luck to all of you, I look forward to playing you across the board!


PAST TOURNAMENT RESULTS!
St Patty's 2011 WINNERS: Aleph?, Brf? (In Progress!)
St Patty's 2010 WINNERS: Karlw, Novatis
St Patty's 2009 WINNER: Nosovs
St Patty's 2008 WINNERS: Richard III, Nosovs
St Patty's 2007 WINNER: Brf!

Brf's St Pat's Pente Tourney 2011! Sign Up by March 17th 2011

The tradition here at Brainking goes into it's fifth consecutive year with yet another St Patricks Day Pente Tournament.

Last years format really honed in the settings that work best for this type of high level Pente tournament...and it was over in a record 6 months! So, with just a few slight mods to the tourney parameters...I believe this years tourney is really getting dialed in and has the best settings we've ever tried.

This is a prize tournament with 1 year Brain Rook awarded to the winner. The section size has been set at 7 people per section with time limits set at 2 days per move with vacation allowed.....anything more and the tourney won't finish before the 2012 St Patty's tourney.

So you have to ask yourself, do you feel you have the Pente luck of the Irish? well sign up and see how far you can make it through the Rounds! On St.Patricks Day (March 17, 2011) the tourney begins!

My thanks to all of you who continue to sign up for this tournament every year! Good luck to all of you, I look forward to playing you across the board!

UPDATE: it's 3-9-11 we're getting a great turnout with 68 people signed up already! so quit procrastinating and click on the link , you only have 8 days left to join!

PAST TOURNAMENT RESULTS!

St Patty's 2010 WINNERS: Karlw, Novatis
St Patty's 2009 WINNER: Nosovs
St Patty's 2008 WINNERS: Richard III, Nosovs
St Patty's 2007 WINNER: Brf!

Snut: different team snut. you can change teams in the fellowship on the team area and see all 4 of our teams. you as far as I know are only in "Pente" thus you can't play in this Keryo tourney unless you signed up.

this tournament is only for Keryo players actively listed on a Keryo team.

well it's been at least 5 years since the last Keryo tourney, but Tanein has just created a new Keryo Team Tournament. Here's the direct link. 10-09-01 Keryo Pente

SPP will have our team signing up shortly. I'd encourage all other fellowships to start getting their Keryo teams put together by the Sept 1 start date.

good luck to all Players and may the best team win!

Fellow Pente Enthusiasts!: Just a Reminder 24 hours left until 4th Annual St Pat's 'Te Tourney for 2010 begins! We currently have 42 players sign up

good luck to all entrants.....I look forward to playing you across the board! -Brf

Brf's St Pat's Pente Tourney 2010! Sign Up by March 17th 2010

The tradition here at Brainking continues with another St Patricks Day Pente Tournament. After the fiasco with last years "single elimination" tourney format, I've decided to go back to straight sets in the old section based format.

This is a prize tournament with 1 year Brain Rook awarded to the winner. The section size has been set at 7 people per section with time limits set at 2 days per move with vacation allowed.....anything more and the tourney won't finish before the 2011 St's Patty's tourney.

So you have to ask yourself, do you feel you have the Pente luck of the Irish? well sign up and see how far you can make it through the Rounds! On St.Patricks Day (March 17, 2010) the tourney begins! My thanks to all of you who continue to sign up for this tournament every year!
Good luck to all players, I look forward to playing you across the board!


PAST TOURNAMENT RESULTS!

St Patty's 2009 WINNER: (Known Soon!)
St Patty's 2008 WINNERS: Richard III, Nosovs
St Patty's 2007 WINNER: Brf!

St Patty's 2009!

ONLY 8 DAYS LEFT TO SIGN UP!

Keeping with tradition I've got another St Patricks Day Tournament out there but I'm changing things up a bit this time.

Only 64 people will be allowed into this years tournament since it's Single Elimination with a '2 wins to advance' match format. The Single Elimination is an experiment to make things more head to head and skill centric, hopefully taking away the random advantage a player can sometimes get over another in a section. (for example: where a player times out in just one game and gives an advantage to one of two other equal players.)

I'm keeping the same time limits as last years (2 days per move with vacation allowed) since that seemed to work rather well. Cash prizes are kind of a pain for Fencer to deal with so I've decided to set the prize as one year Brain Rook (approximately 50$ US value).

So you have to ask yourself, do you feel you have the pente luck of the Irish? well sign up and see how far you can make it through the grid! On St. Patricks Day (March 17, 2009) the tourney begins! Good luck to all players, I look forward to playing you across the board!


PAST TOURNAMENT RESULTS!

St Patty's 2008 WINNERS: Richard III, Nosovs
St Patty's 2007 WINNER: Brf!

chaated: used to....haven't seen much lately though. this board is kind of buried deep in here.
-Brf

I had started a 32 person single elimination tourney for open pente, small pente, Pente, and Keryo pente which I opened up to all of BK. The tournament was a two wins match format with a total time of 16 days allowed for the whole game and was supposed to start November 15, 2008! SPP, All Te Games, 16 Day game, Single elimination, Rated

Since none of the tournaments had a signup of 32 players I've asked Fencer to lower the required number of players to 16! The tournament will be deleted in 24 days if 16 players do not sign up. We're really close on the "pente" tourney and about halfway there on the the other variants. Please consider signing up if you haven't done so already. Thanks! -Brf

I have started a 32 person single elimination tourney for open pente, small pente, Pente, and Keryo pente. This is open to the whole world (otherwise I don't think we'd get all 32 folks. it's a two wins match format with a total time of 16 days allowed for the whole game The tourney starts November 15, 2008! here's the link Pente+, 32plr, Single elim, 2 win match,16day game

Brf's St Patty's Day Tourney 2007 has finished! Just in Time for - Brf's St. Patty's Day Tourney 2008
I will be offering 50$ US to the winner, if you like pente please consider joining it's open to everyone! There are only 7 hours left to signup! 87 people have already joined out of the top 100 players and it looks to be a really fun tourney! Last years tourney was a bit long I felt with 3 day moves (11Months) For this years tournament, I've lowered time limit to 2 Day moves!

Good Luck to all Players entered in this years tournament, I look forward to playing you across the board. -Brf

Brf's St Patty's Day Tourney 2007 has finished! Just in Time for - Brf's St. Patty's Day Tourney 2008
I will be offering 50$ US to the winner, if you like pente please consider joining it's open to everyone! The Last day to signup is March 17th 2008. The 2007 Tourney was alot of fun but a bit long at 3 day moves (11Months) I've lowered it to 2 day moves this time! Good Luck to all entrants! Also, if you are really serious about pente consider joining the Serious Pente Players Fellowship

Good Luck to all Players, I look forward to playing you across the board. -Brf

Brf: the 30 day countdown to my tournament Brf's St. Patrick's Day Pente Tournament
has begun. We have 56 players signed up so far and I'd love to see more. If you haven't done so and have been thinking about it please sign up. We currently have over 56 people signed up as of now and I'd love to see this grow to a hundred or more. Don't be shy, I'd love to see you across the board. -Brf

Brf's St. Patrick's Day Pente Tournament

I will be offering 50$ US to the winner, if you like pente please consider joining it's open to everyone! Last day to signup is March 16th 2007! Good luck to all Entrants! (and if you are really serious about pente) go ahead and join the serious pente players fellowship Serious Pente Players

-Brf