Believe it or not, Poof-Boat "DG" Keryo pente on a 5x9 board was the default rule set in my hometown of Ipswich, SD. Needless to say I was very confused when I first joined this site!
It's no use going back to yesterday, because I was a different person then.
@ RW - your question got me digging around in the archives (we really do need a Pente historian) on the time frame for the introduction of the variants here. In my memory, keryo was around here forever, but in actuality the introduction of it and G pente here was probably what spurred me to consider proposing adding poof as a playable variant. I think I proposed it at BK along with a poof puzzle and was very pleasantly surprised to see that Dweebo had added it as a variant here. So, keryo G and poof arrived here within a month or two of each other a little less than 16 years ago. D apparently came along several months later based on the date of the first DB game. There was some talk of poof keryo at the time, but I think there were so few players playing variants at that point that the coding effort of combining them was not considered worthwhile. Also, keryo has three distinct types of poofs - the standard x_ox as well as xo_ox and x_oox so it's a bit tricky. Mmammel and I did a few postal D poof games, emailing each other our moves. Boat Pente was introduced about 3 years later. Zoeyk and I played a couple of boat poof games (I don't recall exactly when) - I think we played them on a poof board and then analyzed the end game to determine who had the win in the position. Yes, we all talked about speed DG poof boat keryo anti pente
Retired from TB Pente, but still playing live games & exploring variants like D, poof and boat
I'm pondering it. I dislike the choice part in from D-Pente, it involves too much opening knowledge. I enjoy keryo because it feels like a low barrier game, whereas poof and boat feel like it can easily be dominated by good (regular) pente players. I'm very curious as to how the poof and boat rules might spice up keryo.
Who's to say that a (good) regular pente player dominating every variant isn't the natural state of things? Didn't dmitriking get all 27 KotH crowns at once? *thinking emoji*
It's no use going back to yesterday, because I was a different person then.
@Karl - Don't try adding another data point! I don't doubt that you could, but doing that pretty much burned Dmitri out. Not the only reason he retired again, but definitely a factor.
Retired from TB Pente, but still playing live games & exploring variants like D, poof and boat
