Thoughts regarding Pente in the mind sports olympics on May 24th
Posted:
Mar 29, 2022, 4:03 PM
The website they chose for the games to be played on is once again vint.ee. This means 15x15 boards will be used and no undos, unless there's some tournament director function to undo misclicks (which I doubt). Seven rounds, with game time controls of 6 mins + 10 seconds incremental per move. I'm lobbying for longer clock time and shorter incrementals, as that clock/incremental time is more suitable for swap2 gomoku than swap2 Pente. Gomoku can fill the board and end in a draw, so longer incrementals are good there.
Since a long Pente (or swap Pente) game can last 20 moves or so, adding a minute to clock time and subtracting 3 seconds from the incremental time makes the clock roughly the same for a long game. I think either 7/7 or 8/4 timers would be much preferable to 6/10. Yes, those timers might make the games ever so slightly longer, but the clock + incremental for 15 moves would be 8:30 for 6/10 vs. 8:45 for 7/7 and 9 minutes for 8/4. Not a significant difference, but allows for a more managed approach to the clock with extra time to consider proposals and the possibility of whether and where to add stones to an opening proposal.
There should be a good representation from Estonia again this year. Hopefully, between here, flyordie and boardgamearena the U.S. can field more than one player this year. Pente_gon AKA Arcoroc is the defending champion. I'm registered. See you there? https://mindsportsolympiad.com/2022-schedule/
Retired from TB Pente, but still playing live games & exploring variants like D, poof and boat
Re: Thoughts regarding Pente in the mind sports olympics on May 24th
Posted:
Mar 29, 2022, 4:26 PM
The 15x15 board size is unlikely to be a significant factor, since anyone capable of creating a 15x15 swap2 goat proposal which isn't also a 19x19 goat proposal will likely win regardless of board size.
Retired from TB Pente, but still playing live games & exploring variants like D, poof and boat
Re: Thoughts regarding Pente in the mind sports olympics on May 24th
Posted:
Apr 27, 2022, 5:54 AM
Good news; they changed the game timer for this tournament from 6 mins + 10 seconds per move to 10/5. Still fast for the really deep thinkers, but much better. Pente_gon nearly timed out on a few games in last year's tournament (also 10/5) but managed to win all his games at that time control.
Retired from TB Pente, but still playing live games & exploring variants like D, poof and boat
