Instead of engaging in any further debate on this issue, I would like to refer everyone to ANOTHER top player who has FAR greater knowledge of MANY games than I do. To see his message, go to the Pente disucssion board. (Note: NOT Small Pente and NOT Keryo Pente, but just Pente)

On it is a post of one of the top Renju, Gomoku, and Pente players in the world. He knows what he is talking about. His name is Istvan Virag and he is from Hungary. He won the most recently completed real-time Pente tournament at www.pente.org after trouncing me in the semi-finals and beating Dmitri King in the finals. He was also runner up to me (by tiebreak only!) in the recently completed 2001-02 World E-mail pente championship held at www.gamerz.net.

I think that you will see that Virag has MUCH experience in games that are FAR larger then Pente, namely Renju and Gomoku, but that are VERY similar in CONCEPT to Pente. By that I mean, the object is to get 5-in-a-row and they are played on a square board (15x15 I believe). These two games only have moderate interest in the U.S. but have a substantial following in Europe and Asia.

In the memo he states beyond a shadow of a doubt that player 1 wins every time. He then specifically states that long-term thinking must be used when making rules changes.

I think you'll like part of what you see because he is NOT saying that the no-restriction game is bad, only that LONG-term thinking must be used to create NEW rules and that player 1 easily wins by force without the restriction. See what you think.

One last thing. He is ONE of the TWO players who successfully PROVED that player 1 wins by force in 24 moves in GoMoku without an opening restriction.


Gary