Welcome to all keryo-pente players and others that are interested!
I respect tonyh's and dream's oppinion that specific comments should be posted on the relevant messageboard and so i will. I've taken my time to print off and read all the previous messages on this messageboard, 2 hours further and calculating the percentages of my wins and losses, i come to the conclusion that in my case i have 97% chance of winning my black games and 90% of my white games. This also counts for my tourney games! This doesn't imply that black has a slight advantage however, it only means that i have to improve my white games.
Having played 258 regular games of which 114 with white and 128 with black makes 47.1% against 52.9%...not too far off i would say, probably because i posted more games than took out of the waitingroom...only 16 of this total i lost, of which 12 with white and 4 with black....yes also 75% on 25% as i saw Gary explaining to Walter, BUT looking at the total amount of my games played, its 75% of the total 6.25% loss that is with white....which makes 4.69% of the total. 25% of the 6.25% loss is 1.56%....of course...
I have not enough knowledge about regular or pro-pente, so I can't say that the one that begins placing the first stone has a big advantage, but i can say that for Keryo the chances are quite even...7% difference is not alot.
Dmitri...Official rules or not? Is Keryo supposed to be played on 19x19 board? the game is complicated enough on the 13x13 board!....the edge can be used, which has a advantage and a disadvantage.......advantage is that a stone(or stones) on the edge can't be defended from behind and the disadvantage is that you can make less possible combinations, therefore 99% of the games start in the middle and that makes perfectly sence to me... but if people perfer to play their first moves on one of the sides, than thats their own choice, but i am not giving them much chance to win...its the same as putting a knight in one of the first moves on the A or H-line in chess for instance.
I am not going into the subject of all the variations of pente....although the ideas are nice and might give an extra dimension to the game, i believe we first need to know how to play this version properly, before we start looking for alternatives.
Last but not least I will accept every challenge from either of you (i am already enjoying my games against Walter), whether its with white or black....the choice is yours....even when all my games are with white i still know i have a rather even chance....
Best Regards from the flying dutchman,
Dangerous Mind aka Mark.
And now its time to play some games....:)

Gary: About the background color, I was told by several IYT users that blue background would be confusing because of blue color used for Go-Moku on IYT. But I think that I could add some color schemes, similar to chess ones - see Settings / Chess page as an example.
Rotation - this feature is not supported yet but I can disable the automatic rotation for black player, no problem. Line4 is implemented in this way.

Opal Lady and Flippin Maniac -

Come on folks. If you're going to complain about something, whether it be in a joking or serious manner, at least make a serious suggestion on how to improve it instead of just spouting off.

Fencer is excellent at quickly making simple and reasonable changes, but he has to know what we want. I don't think that flourescent orange is reasonable. If you're just spouting off about stuff, he's going to be less likely to listen to you if you have a serious and good suggestion in the future.

Maybe he will consider changing it to the light blue that I suggested or something similar or perhaps he will do it at a later time because other things are a higher priority at the moment. But at least he now has something reasonable to work from.


Gary Barnes

Fencer -

I was kind of thinking the same thing that another person is here. That is the board color for Keryo Pente is a little bright. My suggestion is a neutral color such as light-blue. Althought I don't like to use this as an example, the color of the light-blue Gomoku boards at IYT would be a good color for it.

Also, there is one thing that is creating a problem for players who store their Pente and Keryo Pente games on their computers for future reference. That is in both of your Pente and Keryo Pente games, the coordinates of the board are rotated and faced the opposite direction when a player is playing the black stones like would be done when playing the black pieces in games like Chess or Checkers.

This makes sense for games where pieces are MOVED on the board like Chess and Checkers. But for games where placed pieces are not actually moved, it is not usual to have the board rotated. This is because games of that nature are generally stored in static boards and databases, regardless of which side that you are playing. So the coordinates that are shown when playing black always end up being the exact opposite of the way that we store them.

If it is not a big problem, my first suggestion would be to eliminate that rotation for Pente and Keryo Pente. Then if you feel it is necessary to be consistent, I would suggest doing the same for ALL of your games where coordinates are specified but where pieces do not move once they are placed on the board.

If you want to confirm that with a couple of other Pente players, I'm sure that Dmitri King and Erika would say the same thing.


Thanks,
Gary

Fencer -

Thanks for making the change to automatically place the stone in the middle of the board in Pente and Keryo Pente.

It's amazing how little stuff like that probably doesn't take much time means A LOT in customer service. You have done in 2 weeks what IYT couldn't do in 5 years for Pente and Keryo Pente.

I do have a couple of other thoughts about Pente and Keryo Pente. I'll make a separate post for those.


Thanks again,
Gary

How about Fluorescent Orange.
:)

Some people are just never satisfied :(

What do you suggest?

Couldn't you find something besides that God awful purple color. LOL

The first move (which must be to the board center) is done automatically when a game is started.

The first move (which must be to the board center) is done automatically when a game is started.

Gary: Yes, it should be easy. I'll do it.

Fencer (Filip) -

Here is a suggestion that I have made to www.itsyourturn.com several times but they have ignored, which is usual for them. It would be VERY easy for you to do and it IS done at www.pente.org.

The suggestion is for you to AUTOMATICALLY make the first move for white (player 1) in BOTH Pente and Keryo Pente after the game is started. That way, black (player 2) could just move anywhere he wants right away, the games would go faster, and it would prevent any kind of confusion like this.

Thanks for your great site!


Gary Barnes

It should be easier now, I've highlighted the center point.

Never mind. I finally found out that I had to take the very center move. It was difficult to find, though.

I was just recently invited to a new game of keryo Pente. According to the page I am the one who is supposed to make the first move, but I cannot fine any place on the board were I am allowed to make a move. (there are no places where there is a link indicated)