To all -

I've thought about all of this some more and have decided on two things for the big Pente / Keryo Pente tournament:

1. I'm going to go ahead and put June 7th as the end of sign up. This is because I'm also going to advertise it some at www.pente.org and www.itsyourturn.com. I want players to have plenty of time to see the advertisement and if they are new to this site, have time to come here, create an I.D., and get comfortable with the site before playing in the tournament.

2. I'm going to change the time control from 3 to 4 days. This is because for a large tournament like this, there is a good chance that there will be one or more sections that will have 8 players in them which means that at least some players will have 14 games for this tournament going at once.

Also, I want to make all non-members aware of the situation here at Brain King. Since a player could potentially have 14 games going at once for this tournament and the max for a non-member is 20 games, in order to play in this tournament, you will need to be down to 6 current games in order to play in the tournament.


Gary

To all -

I'm afraid that I messed up on the Pente/Keryo Pente tournament that I set up. Please forgive me because I usually check everything before setting up something big like this.

I appreciate Kevin's comment on the Pente discussion board and it alerted me to the fact that I set the tournament up wrong. It was my intent to set the tournament up for 2 games for each 2 players and I was almost sure that I looked right at that before creating the tournament. Unfortunately the default is 1 game for 2 players and I somehow interpreted that incorrectly to mean 2 games for each 2 players. I would never want to run a serious tournament with only 1 game between each 2 players. I have attempted to edit the tournament to change that and it won't let me change that option.

It seems as though I have NO choice but to delete the tournament and create a new one. Unfortunately 10 players have already signed up for the Pente one and 3 for the Keryo Pente one.

Sometime this evening, I'll delete this tournament and create a new one. I'll also post this message on all 3 message boards that I did before and send a personal message to each of the players that had signed up for this one informing them of what happened and to sign up for the new one. I'll also change the end of sign-up from May 31st to June 7th. Perhaps that will allow some players to finish up some games or tourneys as needed in order to enter the tournament.

I hope that this will not create problems in the Brain King system. In other words, I hope that once I delete the tournament, it will 'clear out' the fact that non-members had signed up for a tournament so that they can sign up for the new one. If you have problems signing up for the new tournament after having been allowed to sign up for the erroroneous one, please let me know about the situation and I will forward an explanation about it to Fencer.

I'm sorry about the problem and thanks, Kevin, for bringing it up.


Gary

Come join us for some serious fun in the Spring 2003 open Pente / Keryo Pente championship tournament.

I would like to make this a fairly large tournament (minimum 10 players for each game) that continues moving along without waiting for long time controls. (3 days/move)

I will be looking to start these once/quarter and to eventually run sectional tournaments as more players obtained established ratings in Pente and Keryo Pente.

See all the specifics at the tournament. May 31st is the last day to sign up.


Gary

Walter -

Thanks for the thoughts and good questions on further rule changes in Pente. Three changes have been proposed. They are called D-pente, G-pente, and S-pente. The games actually exist on www.gamerz.net but no tourneys have been run with them, as far as I know. I think we're just kind of waiting for all of the openings to be exhausted with the current rules, which we are close to doing now.

The letters before the name of Pente is the first letter of the first or last name of the people who proposed them. D-pente was proposed by Don Banks of Canada and S-pente was proposed by Oleg Stepanov of Russia, both top players. G-pente was proposed by yours truly.

Here's the rules for D-pente:
1. Player 1's (white) first move is to center.
2. Player 2 now makes 3 consecutive moves while alternating colors. (black-white-black) There is no restriction on the placement.
3. Player 1 (white) now must decide whether to keep the white stones or swap sides and play the black stones.

Regardless of what the original player 1 (OP1) chooses to do, it is white's move. So if OP1 chooses to swap, he is now black and it is his opponent's move. If he did not swap, then he is white and it is his move. The strategy for OP2 is to make the position as EVEN as possible after making the 3 consecutive moves, which makes the opening full of possibilities and much more interesting.

This is a very good variation that virtually guarantees that neither side will get much of an advantage if the players are reasonably skilled. The only problem is that some players will not like to swap sides and it is a little tricky programatically. But it is easy enough that most people would understand it.

I will briefly mention S-pente. This is a complicated swapping version that I have not taken the time to understand even though I've looked for a while at the rules. It involves possible swapping on the 3rd, 4th, and 5th move so that there can be 0 thru 3 swaps in a game. I don't think there's much chance that very many players will like this because it is too difficult to understand.

Of course my favorite is G-pente since I proposed it! It is EXACTLY like Pente with the current opening restriction except that there is only ONE further restriction on player 1's 2nd move, that is:
Player 1's 2nd move must be at least 3 intersections from his opening move AND it can NOT be in a straight line horizontally or vertically from his opening move either 3 or 4 intersections away. In other words using the coordinates here at Brain King, white can also NOT move to F10, G10, N10, O10, K6, K7, K13, and K14 on his 2nd move.

The reason for this is that virtually ALL of player 1's advantage in Pente with the current restriction is as a result of player 1 making a 'straight line' move from his opening move. It is my opinion that this will even things up for the foreseeable future.

BUT...that said, even with G-pente, it IS possible in 5-10 years (or perhaps less) that one side or the other will be analyzed by top players to have a substantial advantage once again. If that happens, there would probably be no choice but to go to a swap variation.

In proposing G-pente, I have only done a moderate amount of analysis on it and could not come up with anything conclusive for either side, which is what I wanted. I also haven't heard any other strong opinion one way or another on it from top players, although it hasn't been discussed much.

If you want to see the 3 games in program form, Mark Mammel has some software that you can download and that plays all 3 of them on his site. You can find a link to his site at Dweebo's Stone Games at www.pente.org. There is a place on the left side of the main menu for links.

A couple of last things. I think you were confused by what Dmitri King meant by running out of room on a 13x13 board. We would NEVER attempt to imply that the board would fill completely up with stones, even on a 13x13 board. That simply wouldn't happen if the players were trying to win. What he meant is that on a 13x13 board, you would hit the edge of the board quite frequently, ESPECIALLY in Keryo-Pente. You wouldn't notice it so much playing lesser players, but since you're a good player, if you consistently played other good players, you'd notice it quite frequently.

In Pente with the current opening restriction on a 19x19 board, on a rare occassion, say 1 in 25-50 games amongst top players, the edge of the board will be a factor. In Keryo Pente, I would say that the edge of the board would be a factor in 1 in 10-15 games in the same situation. This is after having played several games of it at www.pente.org.

As far as the 100x100 or infintiy board thing, I'm not sure why anyone would want that and it would be potentially VERY problematic to display on someone's screen. But from a purist mathematical perspective, I can understand what you are alluding to there.



Gary

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

Walter -

Yes, perhaps I do sound snobbish toward IYT, but their problems in setting up Pente and Keryo Pente incorrectly to start with are only a SMALL part of the problem. Actually, THEY are snobbish towards US. Here is their problems:

1. They ignore customer requests for improvements. They just 'dream up' their own things that they think will be improvements. Frequently these 'improvements' have been requested by very few players and others they have been requested by MANY players are ignored.

2. THEY act snobbish towards PLAYERS when they make a comment that they have troubles getting on their site at a particular time. They almost always say that it 'HAS' to be the player's provider or computer. I have personally experienced this when I KNEW the problem wasn't on my end and have seen many other players experience it also.

Here's another example. DmitriKing wanted IYT to declare him and Ilurath co-champions of a tournament. After 10-15 Emails they finally gave up. Then to prove a point, he and Ilurath started resigning their respective game immediately every time a new round started so that they continued to be tied. Finally in round ELEVEN, they declared them co-champions!

3. Here's the worst example. When Dmitri King suggested a small improvement for Pente (I'm not sure what it was, but I think it was something simple like automatically placing the stone in the middle to start the game), they said that they do not wish to improve Pente at their site because other sites have Pente!!

This is a true story that can be confirmed with Dmitri King himself. Can you believe that? What kind business in their right mind would make a statement like that?

Now you know why Dmitri King and I think IYT is just plain rude, mean, and snobbish!!


Gary

<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

Walter -

I think you know what Dmitri King means and you're just nitpicking words there. When I played Pente without the tournament rule at IYT because that's all they had and all that I could find at the time, in 18 tournaments, I lost 8 games. ALL EIGHT of those were as player 2 and I was LUCKY in the MANY others. Why? Because there was almost no one in those tourneys that knew how to play the game correctly! That's because most of the former players from the '80's either didn't know about the site or refused to play it without the tournament rule, because they knew it was pointless.

It's the same way for Dmitri King in Keryo Pente at www.pente.org. Sure, he's 12-4 as player 2, but that's because few people understand how to play the game right.

But what if you took Dmitri King, Istvan Virag, Dmitri Krasnonosov, Alexander Nosovsky, Scott Justice, myself, and a few others and gave us a year to completely study and understand the differences between Pente and Keryo Pente. Then you put us into a Keryo Pente tournament together.

Would player 2 EVER win without the tournament rule? Not likely, but if he did, it would be 1 in 50 and we would all be bored tying with each other the other 49 out of 50 times. Give us 3 years to perfect our game, and it would be 1 in 1000 or probably NEVER!

Right now, I would probably wager on Dmitri King beating you 5 in a row without the tourney rule as player 1 in Keryo Pente at IYT, even though I think that he has studied the game very little. I could be wrong, you could win once, but that's because the game is different enough from Pente that he made an error large enough that you could win. That's not to say that you aren't a good player, it's that player 2 is at a fairly severe disadvantage in Keryo Pente also without the opening restriction, even though that disadvantage is not quite as large as in Pente.

The points are:
1. The more you study a game, the more one-sided it is to play it without an opening restriction.
2. Why not play the games WITH the opening restriction from the time that you learn the game so that you have a more equal chance from either side, regardless of your ability?

By the way, the 'things' that they call Pente and Keryo Pente at IYT are no such games. Those games were NEVER invented to be played on a 13x13 board and the tourney rule has been in existence on them ever since the game was less than 2 years old in 1979. IYT simply screwed up when they put the games on their site to begin with and so proceeded to confuse a generation of players. Brain King has gotten it right! As I have told many people, the IYT games should be called 'Beginners (Keryo) Pente' or 'Recreational (Keryo) Pente'. Pro Pente IS the real regular Pente and they don't even have the real regular Keryo Pente!


Gary Barnes

To all -

My name is Gary Barnes. I am the director of one of one of the sections of a large real-time Pente tournament at Dweebo's Stone Games at www.pente.org. Dmitri King and I are both top Pente players and were instrumental in forwarding the correct rules for Pente and Keryo Pente to Filip (Fencer) so that he could get those games set up on his great site. When we did this, it took him less than a week to have the games on the site, which impressed us.

I'd like to make a few comments about the advantage enjoyed by one side in several board games as it relates to the need for everyone to play everyone else in one game of each color in tournaments here at Brainking.

In Pente, even with the correct and current opening restriction on white (player 1), white still has a moderate advantage amongst intermediate-level players. This advantage is increased as the skill of the players increase. It is increased even further in turn-based play, because players can study the positions for long periods of time, if they wish. In E-mail World Pente championships, it is not uncommon for player 1 to win 75-80% of games. Fortunately, we have the opening restriction or player 1 would probably win 98+% of games in top-level turn-based competition. This brings up the game of 5-in-a-line on BrainKing here.

A top Gomoku (5-in-a-line here) player by the name of Istvan Virag along with one other person successfully solved the game of Gomoku as a forced win in 24 moves by white (player 1) on the recognized standard of a 15x15 board. That is because there is no opening restriction for white like there is in Pente.

What this means is that if black plays PERFECTLY, then he can last no more than 24 moves if white plays perfectly and will always lose. While perfect play is unlikely in any game, the fact that a win by force can be accomplished in only 24 moves indicates the overwhelming advantage enjoyed by White in Gomoku (5-in-a-line), even amongst intermediate-level players. This advantage would be even greater on the larger 20x20 board that has been used frequently here at Brainking.

Because of these things and the fact that in many games, one side owns either a small or substantial advantage to start the game, I have just recently sent off an E-mail to Filip suggesting that players play 2-games, one of each color, against all opponents in tournaments.

With that said, I think that the Sonneborn-Berger method for breaking ties is EXCELLENT, but ONLY if everyone gets to play one game of each color against all of their opponents. Otherwise, I would agree that it makes things MORE unfair for a strong player who happens to unluckily get the disadvantageous side against another strong player.