Based on Aaron's contention that the final round of the tournament on IYT (It's Your Turn) was the best ever (!), I thought that I would give IYT a second chance. I had signed up for it several months ago, but I gave up soon after I discovered the interface to be, putting it mildly, lousy. Anything that I can't figure out in 2 minutes tends to try my patience.
When I logged in again this weekend, I thought the options seemed to be a little more concise, so that was good. Luckily I discovered there was another tournament starting on December 4th (that would be today), and I attempted to register, but...I really have no idea if my registration worked or not. There was no real confirmation, and when I click on my tournaments it says I'm not registered in any. Oh well.
I tried playing a few non-tournament pro pente games, and that went ok, although that green board is a little hard for my eyes to digest. It seems odd that there are no ratings. I know it keeps track of wins and losses, but there doesn't even seem to be a simple way of looking up your own stats. When I finally did find my name (searching manually through everyone named banks), I found it still had my wins and losses at 0-0, though I had finished two games the day before. So, my original opinion stands, the site sucks. But it has potential. How open are they to feedback? If they could add a ratings system, and add the new pente variants, that would be good enough. The one thing it has over pente.org is that it's not hard to find someone to play against.
On the two new pente variants at RR's pbem: In d-pente I'm finding it's actually quite difficult to come up with a good opening configuration of stones. (refresher: in d-pente player 1 places two white and two black stones, and then player 2 chooses which side to play). Oleg Stepanov's comment to me was that player 2 should always win. We'll see. He sent me a pair of challenges, and in the game where I was player 1, I chose an opening of: white: k10, n7 black: m11, o9 Which color would you choose? Is it at all clear?
G-pente (white can't play second move co-linear to start) by Gary Barnes I'm more optimistic about. There seems to be enough diversity in the beginning to keep us all amused for a few years, until someone figures out how to beat it. Right now I'm going to go on a limb and say that player 2 has the advantage, but I won't divulge why I think that.
A request to Mark Mammel for the pente tournament on pbem. It might be a little shady to do this, but I wonder if we could just switch from pente to g-pente for the rest of the tournament. You have to admit, it would make things more interesting.
D.Banks
This message was originally posted at Yahoo's pente group.
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Re: iyt, d & g pente
Posted:
Dec 5, 2000, 1:55 AM
Don, Yes IYT can be a little tricky to learn at first but you can see and do alot once you do. The key is the links on the left of the game status page. You can watch all games that have been played and are being played by everyone, including round 3 of the Oct main #1 that Aaron mentioned. I won't make it past round 2 but round 3 will be fun to watch.
To see if you are entered in the new tourney, take the same link where you entered and there should be a mark by pro pente showing that you are entered. I am joeking at IYT and if you, or anyone at the club, has questions, send me a message there. Don't get me wrong, I am no expert, but I have been playing at IYT for a while.
And yes, that G pente is interesting! Joe
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Re: iyt, d & g pente
Posted:
Dec 5, 2000, 9:10 AM
>D-Pente (Oleg) He sent me a pair of challenges Or maybe some other mischievious person(s) sent the challenges (S.E.G.)
> Oleg Stepanov's comment to me was that player 2 should always win. Well, in THEORY that is true. No game should end in a tie so any position of four stones is a win for either white or black, p2 can always choose the winning side. Of course it is not so easy for us non-omnicient folks to choose the winning side and play it perfectly
>white: k10, n7 >black: m11, o9 >Which color would you choose? Is it at all clear? I guess I would play white only because it moves first. I would be tempted to play between the two black stones.
>if we could just switch from pente to g-pente for the rest of the tournament (PBEM) Not for the second round, but I will poll those players in the second round if they are willing to play d- or g-pente. If ALL of those advancing have agreed to either one, that one will be played in the final. Next year, one of those will definitely be used at least in the second and the final rounds.
-Mark
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Re: iyt, d & g pente
Posted:
Dec 5, 2000, 5:13 PM
Why don't we just start a D-G-Pente Evaluation Tournament at RR PBEM? We can start a tournament for D-Pente and another to G-pente. The only restriction I would make is to force any participant to play at both tournaments.
This would force us to play some games with the new rules. After playing some games and watching others games we could form stronger opinions on those rules.
We could use Pente ratings to seed both tourneys.
What do you think about the idea?
Mark, if you help me, I would volunteer to organize it (or to help you).
This message was originally posted at Yahoo's pente group.
Re: iyt, d & g pente
Posted:
Dec 6, 2000, 12:01 AM
My contention if you want to call it that, was that the final round of IYT's Oct. Main #1 tournament is going to be one of the strongest ever--IN TERMS OF LEVEL OF PLAY. I make no claims as to the quality of IYT as a site, though I dispute Don's claim that it sucks. I think the graphic interface on IYT (with apologies to Richard's PBeM) beats the crap out of text-based e-mail play. The records are updated once every 24 hours, so Don's experience with the records may have something to do with that lag time.
As for ratings, IYT says that they don't do them because it's too easy to cheat them. And they're right. Just take a stroll through Yahoo games sometime if you want to see what happens to a huge gaming site with a ratings system. I even have personal knowledge of ratings cheats on Dweebo's site, and it is much smaller. However, if you need to have a rating to enjoy pente, Gary Barnes puts out a ratings list of IYT tournament players every couple of weeks.
Anyway, I did not mean to turn this into a rant in defense of IYT. Don has a right to his opinion, and I have no problem with Don. However, let the record show (for those of you that aren't on IYT but may be considering it) that I, for one, had NO problems learning the IYT interface. In my experience, it is the most user-friendly e-pente site on the web.
Aaron Fortune
This message was originally posted at Yahoo's pente group.
Excellent defense of IYT Aaron! It is easily the most user friendly sight that I have seen and there are tons of players!
As Mark Mammel and maybe a couple of others are aware, I think that Richard's site is terrible. It is difficult to find instructions, you can't read the boards it returns, and you just get cryptic error messages if you send an incorrect command. I have had to send E-mails to Mark to figure out where to go to find out some of the commands.
In addition, it's very easy to send an incorrect coordinate or game no. and then you are screwed if your opponent won't let you have it back. It's much easier to click on a little green board. But I prefer to 'push the stones' around in Oleg Stepanov's database, which has a less harsh background. Also, you always know how much time you have left, even in non-tourney games instead of just getting a Nag once/week. It says the exact time to the minute that you need to make your next move by right below the 'little green board'.
Anyway, thanks Don for your good comments about G-Pente. I believe that Mark, Happy, and myself think that P1 has a slight edge there as it is. Also, I'm not sure that I agree with Stepanov's comments about D-Pente being a win for P2. Perhaps at top level play, it will be like Chess where white wins 55-60% of grandmaster games (counting draws as 1/2). But that is certainly not something that makes the game bad to play.
OK everyone, what player has the advantage in Keryo Pente with the G-Pente opening rule?
Gary Barnes
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Re: iyt, d & g pente
Posted:
Dec 6, 2000, 12:38 PM
Here's a few thoughts from a humble Florida voter: 1. The last round of the IYT October tournament should be interesting with a high level of play between some of the elite players of today. Obviously, many of the top notch active competitors (Virag, Stepanov, ladybug (?), etc) did not sign up, but we still should have a strong final with a couple of good players not making it due to only the winner advancing.
3.IYT is an okay site with some flaws. I think it is obviously geared more toward the casual/intermediate player. I think they probably are not overly concerned about catering to a serious player, but I agree they have made several advancements. I remember when Pro Pente was not an option and they did not support a 19X19 board. Plenty of players, but it is not necessarily easy to find a good game. The notation system is a joke, but I realize the goal is to get you to click on as many new screens as possible to get you to view another banner. Lovely shade of green. All those gripes aside, it is a good site with a large and growing base of players and plenty of tournaments.
436. Oleg's comment is obviously true in theory. End of conversation on the fact that the 2nd player has the winning advantage in D-Pente. I agree with Mark and Gary and everyone else that Pente is fun and none of us are close to playing the game theoretically accurate on a consistent basis, but let's face it: in Pente if both sides play correctly, one side will always lose no matter how well he plays and which side that happens to be simply depends on how the restrictions mandate.
2. Buchanan.
7. I prefer G-Pente over D-Pente, but I reserve the right to change my vote. My stylus has made an indentation on this subject, but I am not sure of my actual intent.
6. Richard's site is a good site with some flaws. It took me much longer to figure it out than IYT. The play is at a much higher level than IYT, but tends to drag out way too long. The interface has much to be desired, sort of like my attempt at displaying my Pente puzzle. However, it is a good email service ran by gamers for gamers.
This message was originally posted at Yahoo's pente group.
