I'm a 38-year-old software engineer who discovered Pente during its heyday, in the mid-80's, thanks to a fellow at work. He had lived in Japan, and learned to play Go. He wondered if any of his co-workers were interested in learning the game; if so, he'd teach it. At that time, none of us had heard of Ishi Press (who sold, and probably still sells, Go books, boards, stones, etc.), so he suggested using Pente boards instead. He gave up after only a couple of lessons, unfortunately, but I decided to learn the actual game of Pente.
Thankfully, a few years later, an associate minister, who became like a brother to me, came to our church. He was also a Pente fan, and introduced me to the circular version, Megiddo. (You think diagonals are tough to catch, try spirals in concentric rings!) We've recently gotten back in touch with each other (he's now a senior minister in Iowa), and are once again playing Pente against each other, thanks to Pente.net. Oh, my wife is also getting very good at Pente and Megiddo; we've also got some other stone games which have proved to be fun, too.
Oh, I was born & raised in a little town by the name of Wittman, MD. For the past 20+ years, I've lived in Melbourne Village, FL.
This message was originally posted at Yahoo's pente group.
