> Is the first player advantage still there on a 13x13 (or 14x14) board with pro rule penju?
13x13 board is still sufficient to win without opening rules. It's quite tricky though. More, Renju Pro is won for Black on 15x15 but the win is complicated. I didn't make a research nor I've heard about any, but I'd suggest Black has no win on 13x13 with a Pro opening rule. Not enough space. More, I even doubt Black can win on 13x13 with Pro rule.
But it doesn't matter because nobody will balance Renju or Gomoku with stricting it to 13x13 and Pro rule since it is a dead-end for a game, no further development possible.
> Correspondence Pente (swap rules included) isn't challenging for high dan renju players such as yourself.
I don't know it yet, I've never tried =) If it isn't, well, it's bad news for the whole game because correspondence play gives an insight on how strong can one play IRL. Also providing a lot of new techniques, understanding, opening theory etc.
Yet I hope Correspondence Pente is interesting and isn't that easy to solve.
> I look forward to that, actually.
If you are a good programmer and have an access to GPU, you can do it yourself, the vast majority of the work is already done afaik =) You have to implement the rules within a given neural network and put it on self-study.
"Yet I hope Correspondence Pente is interesting and isn't that easy to solve."
Well, I should clarify that. Nosovs certainly played it (pro rules) for a number of years and occasionally lost. So did Viktor B, for a few years. It depends partly on the time control, I think. Four moves per day in swap2 might be a fair challenge against another master player. 90 days per game, perhaps not so much. At least, that's how I perceive the complexity of swap2 Pente in comparison to the skills of say a 7+ dan renju player with Pente experience. But, not being a renju player, I could be wildly off. But,as a Pente player of 30 years, correspondence swap2 doesn't seem very complex to me beyond 2 days per move. Likely, there are many unplumbed depths to the game that no one has thought of so far, since the competition quality is lacking so far. Adding a rule such as being able to capture across a 5 does significantly increase the complexity.
As one example, I think this game: is more complex than most D Pente games, despite having pro rules, due to the Boat Pente capture rule.
"If you are a good programmer and have an access to GPU"
No to either for me personally.
Message was edited by: watsu at Dec 11, 2022, 3:50 PM
Retired from TB Pente, but still playing live games & exploring variants like D, poof and boat
For me it's a sad story when you play two games, in one you attack, in another you struggle. Sounds better when there is only one game with (approx) equal chances. Any balancing like Pro is doomed to the first scenario; swaps provide possibilities for the second.
When Victor and Alexander were active in Pente, world didn't know these options, swap2 and 5-swaps. More precisely, 5-swaps opening rule was proposed in XX century but was greatly underestimated at that time. I suppose Nosovsky knew about this approach (either 'Nostradamus' rule or 'concentric squares' rule). But it wasn't popular, it wasn't even deeply understood, so nobody has an idea to spread it among other 5-in-a-row games.
IMO, Gomoku mostly died because of the Pro rule. The number of players and tournaments was consistently decreasing in 2000s. It was truly resurrected by swap2: new World Championships emerged, new players, new life. Consider this for Pente =) Don't stick to a lethal poison, Pro opening rule =)
Concerning the game, I can't analyze it deeply now: I'm not that skilled in Pente so it would be very time consuming, and I'm quite short in time now. I'm a refugee, it has some costs =(
Message was edited by: owen_ at Dec 12, 2022, 6:23 PM
First off, let me just say that I'm very sorry to learn you're a refugee. Secondly, thank you for coming here to share your perspective as one of the top renju players in the world. These forum discussions have been around for nearly 20 years and will still be here whenever you may have more time in the future.
Retired from TB Pente, but still playing live games & exploring variants like D, poof and boat
Oh, no! Very sorry to hear that! I had emailed him about swap2 Pente a few months ago. He proposed a 3 swap Pente renju hybrid variant called S Pente back in the early 2000s (I don't know exactly when) but I don't know that it ever got added as a variant anywhere except for Richard's PbeM (correspondence). http://www.gamerz.net/~pbmserv/s-pente.html
Retired from TB Pente, but still playing live games & exploring variants like D, poof and boat
That's almost a 5-swaps rule I'm talking about. The main difference is that in Tarannikov (5 swaps) rule opps may swap after 1st move and 2nd move as well. Not only after 3rd, 4th, 5th.
Renju on vint.ee is being played by an ancestor of this rule, T10 rule.
I think when he proposed it, non renju players probably thought that renju playing Pente players would have too much of an advantage over those who don't play renju. However, the lines and strategies between renju and Pente seem enough different to me that I think renju and Pente players would be exploring new territory together. I may have to give it a try. I suspect I like swap2 better, but only one way to know...
Retired from TB Pente, but still playing live games & exploring variants like D, poof and boat
> non renju players probably thought that renju playing Pente players would have too much of an advantage over those who don't play renju
I believe there should be no advantage of renju players because of this particular opening rule. Pente players still may benefit from their theoretic background because they can at least put an opening from Pro rule =)