Woah! When did this discussion turn into an argument?!! Its been close before but this is getting out of hand.
Dmitri and Gary, if people threaten to leave this site just because of you two then I'm sure they wont be missed. Emotional blackmail is an ugly thing and un-called for. If people want to stamp their feet and say "if I cant play this game then I'm not playing at all" the best thing to do is walk away and let them have their tantrum in peace.
I had never played pente before I came here, and I can see where you're coming from with this 'variant' that people want so bad.
Question.. if it had never been at this site at all, would everyone be shouting so loud about it now?
What comes to mind is a child who has no thoughts of ice-cream at all, until they see the ice-cream van.. then its the end of the world if they cant have one.
So it goes with this game. If it had been put here WITH the restriction to begin with there would be no problem now. Nobody would ASK for it without the restriction. As it is, it has been changed to fall in with the OFFICIAL rules and this should be accepted. And it was changed because FENCER saw the logic in what Dmitri and Gary are saying, no other reason.
And Walter... cheap shot at Gary. Nobody is interested in how often he is moving in your game. Its a turn based site, as long as he moves within the time its a legal move. If you have a problem with that its between you two and should be addressed privately, not on here to try and make Gary look bad. Next time shorten the time for moves.