Posts:
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From:
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Age:
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Re: Who is the best active TB Pente player in the world?
Posted:
May 13, 2022, 4:21 AM
Pentegon was active in last year. And he pops in weekly and browses. My vote is for him. If the question is of who is currently on the leader board, then I would say maybe me. Ned and mumix are both strong players however. I think I have more historical line knowledge. As to if I can think further outside of the box then them, it hasn't been tested yet. Dunno. I've played more than the 70 games suggested. I've done a lot of unrated. I've played more as P2 than as P1, because I enjoy the challenge. I've played thousands in total. The only masters that i have failed to defeat with my P2 is Nosovs and Lancer and pentegon. R3 has beaten nosovs's p1. Which is impressive. Karlw beat pentegon, which is impressive. He did use my opening novelty to do so, but another story for another time. I've been playing various forms of pente for 30 years now. My step father invented boat pente. In addition even before meeting him at 15 years old, we played gomoku in school regularly. My teacher was good. I do not know Ned and Mumix background in pente. Such as alt accounts etc. Ill say I agree with R3. NOSOVS was the best ever. Close second places were R3, back in his hey day, and BRF, and Lancer, aka Victor Barykin. Maybe Garyb? Would need an old timers opinion on gary. As to Karlw, he's close to that level if not in it. I would go so far as to say he's better than me. Karlw has contributed more to pente than I have. He's a brilliant tactician. And his brain can calculate faster than my can. That being said, I feel I do not trail very far behind his skill and achievements. And I do feel I have some pente strengths in some areas which can surpass him. I think I have more patience to deep study. I think karl can be impatient which can cause occasional errors. While i have made some contributions to pente theory, my efforts pale in comparison to what karl has contributed to pente theory.. at end of day, matters not whom is best, for me, im just here for fun. My 2 cents for what its worth.
Ps, I would normally say R3 is best on leader board. He was always considered higher level than me. Back in the day.. But lately I feel he has been purposely throwing his P1 game, intentionally. Not sure why. So he would need to sharpen up again, before I can say he is above me. I think his P2 is still ok tho. He just had no care about his P1 game lately. Odd. Anyways
Now if we talk about 3rd place masters of all time, The list would have at least 50 to 60 players, possibly more.
Message was edited by: zoeyk at May 13, 2022, 4:37 AM
Scire hostis animum - Intelligere ludum - Nosce te ipsum - Prima moventur conciliat - Nolite errare
Re: Who is the best active TB Pente player in the world?
Posted:
May 13, 2022, 11:56 AM
Just to throw in a few footnotes: 1. karlw's p2 win against pente_gon was a part of a referee'd (by me) 10 set match between them. Both players had to play as P2 in 10 different places, neither player was allowed to use transposed or mirrored lines to deal with p2 moves by their opponent and both players had to submit their first several moves to me before making them in order to assure that the lines diverged from each other. Karl's p2 win still counts against pente_gon, of course, but the circumstances were a bit different than with a normal or tournament set. 2. happyjuggler0 AKA likewowman2cool on brainking beat nosovs as p2 in both regular and small Pente (in addition to some p2 wins against other top players during that era). I think s/he should at least be mentioned in discussions of the top players of the 2010s, despite a relatively short online Pente career. 3. GaryB was quite amazing during his prime. However, in his opinion Dmitri Krasnonosov was the best 2 days per move player of that era. garyb AKA Pente champ on IYT (and progambler for live games here) and Dmitri AKA student. Unfortunately, many of their non tournament games were lost when IYT lost (and never recovered) them. Bear in mind when looking at their old games that they were the online pioneers in exploration of lines (like the wedge in online TB play, e.g.) and there was no database to study. Keep in mind, too, that during 2017-18 we had as active TB players here Dmitri King, pente_gon, ksackett and brf. Also, garyb's tournament TB record against players like Dmitri King, brf, nosovs, virag, vbarykin, sjustice, ksackett (kurupt) etc. at PBeM, brainking and IYT is something to keep in mind, in addition to all of his won Pente tournaments at IYT. Definitely a player to be considered among the all time TB greats. 4. Garyb doesn't have a db win against nosovs as p2 and nosovs has one against Gary, but they didn't play each other very much at IYT or PBeM. Student/Kras vs. nosovs at IYT and PBeM is interesting to note, though. Kras swept 2 sets (out of 3) in IYT tourneys against nosovs and they were basically even (one P1 loss each) in their PBeM encounters.
Message was edited by: watsu at May 13, 2022, 6:39 PM ETA - more information on games, players, etc.
Retired from TB Pente, but still playing live games & exploring variants like D, poof and boat
Re: Who is the best active TB Pente player in the world?
Posted:
May 13, 2022, 2:23 PM
This account is my only account, started less than two years ago. I guess you can say my history is playing connect 4 at bars, which I do not think I have lost yet lol unless too drunk to remember. The well populated database certainly helped me get a lot better and I do not know if I would be nearly as good without it in such a short timeframe. However, I do not feel im anywhere near as good as zoeyk, karlw, etc. in terms of actual theory study or knowledge. They seem to play one game at a time and study the heck out of it, and think about conceptual things, whereas I play many games usually without too much thought as I am just passing the time while on the toilet or a few minutes before sleep. I guess my interest is more in playing than studying, though in the tourney games against karlw I did try my best to use lines not in the database and studied the heck out of every position, otherwise I would have had no chance lol. Was actually a bit exhausting!
Posts:
2,220
Registered:
Mar 4, 2007
From:
San Francisco
Age:
45 Home page
Re: Who is the best active TB Pente player in the world?
Posted:
May 13, 2022, 7:50 PM
Happyjuggler0 and Likewowman2cool came out of no where and were masters. I call B S. Those were alt players. Alt players get credit for innovation, novelties, discoveries, sweeping grand masters. But they do not get to be listed as top players as they sand bag players. The ratings are false. They didn't work from square one. Inflated ratings. And be_water, and water dancer. And Novatis. The list goes on. Who the helll are these people? Just crawled out of the woodwork as a top master? Nah man. If your first month in pente is sweeping top masters, then something fishy is going on. You can look at my move history and see legit progression. Im not an alt. The player cubsfan, who is second place between me and nosovs, he's an alt and I know who it is. I had half a mind to have the sand bag account deleted. Just saying. A lot of alts. And alts are not the same as original account. They didn't have to climb up from a learning curve.
Scire hostis animum - Intelligere ludum - Nosce te ipsum - Prima moventur conciliat - Nolite errare
Re: Who is the best active TB Pente player in the world?
Posted:
May 13, 2022, 8:10 PM
Okay, I'll grant you waterdancer is an alt. name. That's my Brainking nick. I might have watsu there also, but it's not the main name I played there with, or else there was another tournament I was in at the time. Anyway, I've always been upfront about that being my account. I still want to know who is playing behind those likewowman and happyj accounts, nonetheless. My initial thought was Rollie, until he passed away. Novatis told me he played 10,000 games at flyordie before coming here. How many known and unknown names does Viktor Barykin play under? I count three known nicks for him (lancer, vbarykin and zemlyak) at PBeM alone. Frankly, we wouldn't see that much evolution if a top player from vint.ee showed up here either. Or an old kurnkik.pl player took the game up again. Or a forum reading high dan Go and renju player. Or someone who used to be rated in the old Pente newsletters (okay, probably a bit more in that case, but still...) ETA: pente_gon has a different nick on BK and won at least his first 50 games as P1 here, including a set against Dmitri King. Turns out he had played a bit (lol) of Pente and gomoku at various sites and in real life tournaments before he came here. It seemed fishy at the time...
Message was edited by: watsu at May 13, 2022, 8:48 PM
Message was edited by: watsu at May 13, 2022, 9:41 PM
Retired from TB Pente, but still playing live games & exploring variants like D, poof and boat
Re: Who is the best active TB Pente player in the world?
Posted:
May 14, 2022, 2:21 AM
It is sad when people feel the need to hide, but it is what it is, I guess. I got introduced to the game by tin_can and I was losing 100% of games to him at the start, that's my beginnings.
I think that's a pretty accurate representation of my personal pente hall of fame.
Gary Barnes and Rollie Tesh are among the names that undoubtedly deserve a mention, but unfortunately their representation in the db doesn't match their importance in the game's history.
It's no use going back to yesterday, because I was a different person then.
Re: Who is the best active TB Pente player in the world?
Posted:
May 16, 2022, 2:37 PM
Karl's list is, of course, Karl's list. However, my list would definitely include virag, student (AKA Dmitri Krasnonosov) and Gary Barnes (BK) AKA garyb (PBeM), progambler (here) and Pente champ (IYT) over watsu AKA waterdancer. Likely ksackett AKA kurupt, ilurath, aaalpha (Bodo Konze), dufus, be_water and a few more who are slipping my mind currently. ETA: Stepanov and jayhawklov both had lists of top players (Stepanov on his site, jay here) back in the day. Probably worth digging out of the vaults for a more complete list. I don't think Oleg Stepanov's ratings page changed much over the years, so consider it Oleg's snapshot circa 2002. internet archive link ETA: there used to be a good live player here named happy back in the early days. I seem to recall playing TB against him or her, but can't find any TB games in the db. Not sure if there's any relation to happyjuggler or not. Maybe he was Oleg's happy-day?
Message was edited by: watsu at May 16, 2022, 2:39 PM
Message was edited by: watsu at May 16, 2022, 2:56 PM
Message was edited by: watsu at May 17, 2022, 4:06 AM
Retired from TB Pente, but still playing live games & exploring variants like D, poof and boat
