Re: Help New Player Pls
Posted:
Jun 29, 2004, 2:18 PM
Know how you feel. Check out the games history here. Has tons of games from three different sites. Also, brainking.com keeps a good log of all the games played there. And of course, you can get your butt kicked regularly by the good players here. Over time some of their strategy begins to sink in. Of course, by then they've usually come up with new ways to beat you
Posts:
751
Registered:
Mar 1, 2002
From:
My Own Lil World Mostly
Age:
43
Re: Help New Player Pls
Posted:
Jun 29, 2004, 4:46 PM
You could check out the links page on www.playpente.com There are many resources available. Dweebo has a great links page here as well, linking to tutorials, downloadable AIs, etc. But the best bet is to play players ranked higher than you! You can see a players rank here by double clicking on their name. You could also check out the game history with Player 1 being dmitriking or progambler. They have some great games here in the database. Plus they are freaking awesome pente players. Another great innovative player, much more rare to see him here, is jimgarret. His games amaze me as well. Good Luck on your quest. If I am ever here when you are hit me up for a game, always willing to play!
Posts:
542
Registered:
May 9, 2002
From:
Northeast USA
Re: Help New Player Pls
Posted:
Jun 30, 2004, 4:02 AM
A very useful site I have used often since I first started playing is maintained by one of DSG's long time players, Mark Mammel (I hope he doesn't mind me plugging his site here!). Visit:
Besides various news items and links to many great stone game sites, there are 4 fantastic links, essential for all pente enthusiasts. These are the first four links encountered in the sections labelled "Downloads".
First of all, you can download the same exact pente playing AI that is used here at DSG (the one where you have been battling with level 4). Downloading and playing this AI on your PC is much faster than playing it through DSG since there is no client server communication -- the faster your PC, the faster the game plays. Of course, this should not detract you from visiting DSG as often as possible! Since live play is certainly the best and most fun way to rapid improvement.
Secondly, you can download one of the most thorough opening books that I've ever seen attempted to date. This book is a real eye opener for beginners and can certainly be quite useful as you become an intermediate and even a fairly advanced player (at which point it starts to appear a bit outdated, since the skill of the game has evolved since it was written).
Lastly, you can download hundreds of games that were played by top players in a world championship event and scroll through the moves with the AI program. Simultaneously, you can also view a transcript of many of these games, with narration that describes what the top players were thinking as they made certain moves and strategies. This should keep you busy and intregued for quite some time.
There is also a renju site somewhere that has a link to a very brief pente strategy guide which was quite good (lots of references to "atari-check", etc). I wish I had more time to find it and post it here. Perhaps I'll follow up with that later. Along these lines, there actually was a book or two, written by a former world champion, that I believe is still possible to buy on amazon.com -- hopefully someone else will chime in with the author's name and the title of that book.
Hope to see you here at DSG -- good luck with your quest to learn the game.
Re: Help New Player Pls
Posted:
Jun 30, 2004, 5:05 AM
There are two books written by Tom Braunlich who won the world championship tourney from 1979-1981 (runner-up in 1978). They are entitled: Pente Strategy/ Book I and II. Copyright 1980. I'm an intermediate player and there is some really good stuff in there. It's a bit dated and some of the best players here probably wouldn't get much out of them, but for intermediate/beginner type players there are some good pointers for opening moves for tourney style play. I think you can find them on e-bay. Hope this helps.
Good Luck on your quest. If I am ever here when you are hit me up for a game, always willing to play!