Walter -

You say that I haven't proven anything about the advantage of player in Keryo Pente without the tourney rule. Well I am doing so here. I have compiled your IYT tournament stats at Keryo Pente. You are a very good player and hence I'm surprised that you are arguing against an opening restriction. Here's your stats:

As player 1: 35-4 89.7%
As player 2: 28-11 71.8%
Total: 63-15 80.8%

Now to be more accurate, we must remove games that were 5 moves or less that were forfeited:

Player 1: 31-4 88.6%
Player 2: 24-11 68.6%
Total: 55-15 78.6%

Very nice stats indeed!

As you can see, you are substantially better as player 1 then player 2. Mathematically, there is a HUGE difference between 89% and 69%. Even for just 35 games, the statistical signifance is out there. If you think of it in terms of the statistical bell-shaped curve, the difference between 89 and 69% is MUCH larger than the one between 60% and 40%. I would not consider it significant if it was 60-40 unless you had more games played.

But what makes your stats MORE significant is the fact that MANY of the players that you would have played would have been beginners and low-intermediates, and hence you won both games fairly easily.

I could compile stats on many different top players in rounds 3 and 4 of the Keryo Pente tourneys at IYT and make the significance ridiculous. As a matter of fact over the next few days, I WILL do that. Then there will be NO question in ANYONE's mind about the advantage enjoyed by played 1 in Keryo Pente without the opening restriction.

As far as the 13x13 board argument. That's not even an argument. The game wasn't invented that way nor was there any formal rule change made by any Pente organization to change that. There WAS a formal rule change in 1979 to have the opening restriction, so IYT showed it's ignorance by not being aware of BOTH of those facts.

The fact that you are arguing in favor of IYT's rules further proves the devastation that they have done to those 2 great games. Here's why. In order for a game to become a mainstream competitive game with sponsored tournaments and the like such as Chess, Pente, or even unrelated games like Scrabble or Monopoly, it must have a large following. In order to have a large following, books must be written, strategy guides must be written, databases of games (for board games) must be created, etc. The only players that will do those things will be hi-intermediate and championship-level players. The only way that top players would spend their time with something like that is if both sides had a reasonable chance to win.

These things have been done for Pente because it's just been in the last 2 years that player 1's advantage has really come out even WITH the current opening restriction. Without these things having been done, it's just another recreational game with mostly luck involved or with one side having an overwhelming advantage like Tic-Tac-Toe or Connect-4, or kids games such as Sorry, Trouble, or Candy Land. No one in their right mind would write strategy guides for those, because once you learn a few basic rules and patterns of play, there's nothing left to learn.

It is our goal to bring Pente and Keryo Pente into the mainstream so that there will be sponsorship of future tournaments. That can only be accomplished if both sides have a reasonable chance to win, even at the highest level.


Gary