Re: oldest recorded internet pente game on this site
Posted:
Jun 17, 2008, 2:57 PM
Here's another story- this time from my early online Pente days. When I first started to look around online for places to play Pente, I think the first place I came was either here or IYT. Anyway, I registered here pretty early on but didn't play here too much at first for whatever reasons. At IYT, there was a guy who challenged everybody to come try to beat him at Pente. I'd already played online enough to know that I didn't stand much of a chance (I'd only read one book on Pente, after all), but I figured what the heck. The guy's name was Gary Barnes and he whupped me good at IYT. Flash forward awhile... I'm online at pente.org and I see this player named progambler who has a very high rating. We played a set. As I recall, in the first game we played we each placed 3 moves apiece. And then I waited... and waited and waited. Finally, after about five minutes I jokingly asked searching your library? (a reference to the game Magic:The Gathering) He replied, no, I'm working the lines out in my head... 10 minutes into the game he made his fourth move. By the end I think he was down to about a minute left on his clock. That was progambler, AKA Gary Barnes. His picks for the best players at that time were: Virag real time and student AKA Dmitri Krasnonosov in 2 day per move games...
Retired from TB Pente, but still playing live games & exploring variants like D, poof and boat
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Re: oldest recorded internet pente game on this site
Posted:
Jun 17, 2008, 3:57 PM
The first game ever played at this site was actually not wesley vs smitty on 8/19/1999. I don't actually know who played the first game because games weren't recorded at first.
There was no database of games, and there wasn't even a database. I recorded player ratings from the beginning I think, but just in a plain file.
I can't exactly remember at what date the site went live but I seem to recall May 1999 as being the beginning. I ran the site from my free web page provided from Purdue university, (it is surprising looking back that we were allowed to run our own programs acting as servers on the university computers).
Anyways, if you think it is hard to find people to play at the site now, imagine it back then! I used to sit in the lobby for hours and of course no one would show up because hardly anyone knew about the site.
In the summer of 1999 I got a job as an intern at Los Alamos National lab. I was working in a building that used to be a nuclear reactor, my desk sat in the basement which was where the core was. To get down there I had to go down a straight staircase of over 70 steps. Because hardly anyone ever showed up at the pente site I wrote a little program in C++ that sat in my windows task bar, when someone logged into the server it would turn from a red icon to a green icon. Then I could log in and see if they wanted to play.
The fun part was I could also chat with them from the little program by typing in commands to the server, and the chat messages would show up to the player like a ghost was talking to them since I wasn't actually there! I remember afortune visited alot back then and would join the empty main room and call out to see if I was watching.
That would be a cool program to have now actually now that I think about it, but I stopped using it after the site got more active and it no longer worked when the server code changed. So don't worry, I am not secretly watching you play
Hard to believe it has been over 9 years since then! -dweebo
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Re: oldest recorded internet pente game on this site
Posted:
Jun 24, 2008, 7:52 PM
I read from Sweden about Pente around 80 year. Then we had mails with Tom Braunlich about cooperation with USA - Pente during the proccess of establishing International Renju Federation. Tom was going to visit Moscow with the help of sponsorship Parker Brathers. One of variant which was discussed those times was that one of foundation of RIF will be USA Pente Federation, but They suggested us Parker Brathers Company instead of Federation and bonus with 10 000 USD sponsorship. Japanese Renju Federation say no to Company, because every Federation have to have only national Federations, not company, or single persons. Then we had played Pente in Moscow 1988 won by Igor Sinyov. And then during our International Meeting in Sweden 1989 we also had Pente Tournament.
As for Internet games As I remember first games was played at PBem server. It was first championship which was won by userid from Russia which I guess is one of Dmitriy Krasnonosov (student) userids. The second championship was more seriouse and was won by Garry Barnes. As most of Russian players was Renju players, and we used Base of the games in Renju, we make Pente Database by Stepanov which imported data from Pbem server. Then Dweebo desided to make On-line Database and he got from Stepanov his data of games. Userid leonid - is Leonid Glukhovsky which was Russian Renju player moveing later in 90-es to Izrael but he was in Sweden Tournament at 1989. Then was October 1 Main at IYT, which collected a lot of great players which was won by Dmitriy Krasnonosov. Then Garry Barnes invite all players at brainking server.
To play on-line very difficult because of time difference. I have to play most of my games from 6 AM -8 AM playing USA players.
