Posts:
2,233
Registered:
Mar 4, 2007
From:
San Francisco
Age:
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pente history,..help add to this, any thing you guys can find
Posted:
Aug 25, 2008, 12:35 AM
hey guys,.. help me in collecting all pente historical information you can find, and dump it into this thread. i am currently working on a project where i will be using this information. thanks
Re: pente history,..help add to this, any thing you guys can find
Posted:
Aug 25, 2008, 4:56 AM
Greg Strange got some old ('83 and '84) Pente newsletters posted on his now defunct WPPF site. I'm not sure if any of them can be recovered through the internet archives or not but you might tak a look @ http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://playpente.com
I'm pretty sure Tom Braunlich was the one who passed those along to Greg. You might still be able to reach him through the site here- user tbraunlich
Retired from TB Pente, but still playing live games & exploring variants like D, poof and boat
Posts:
72
Registered:
Dec 16, 2001
From:
pensacola
Age:
40 Home page
Re: pente history,..help add to this, any thing you guys can find
Posted:
Aug 31, 2008, 7:50 AM
Here's my recollection of my days playing Pente. My older brother Bill, who was and is a very competitive person, started playing the game back in 1981 or so. He taught me and we would play a bunch. I think he usually won, but then again I was only thirteen. After just a few months of playing, he won the Pensacola Pente tournament and I came in third or so. Since he won he got to go to Dallas to play in the World Championship. To everyone's surprise, Bill finished second to John Krenz and won some cash. Those were the days.
The following year Bill again won a spot while I finished second in three different tournaments and did not qualify. I remember Bill Webber beat me in one. He was an excellent player with quite a bit of finesse to his game, maybe a little too much. I got to go with Bill this time to the 1983 Boston tournament. He had a rough tournament but it was fun. Rollie Tesh won. He rates as the best Pente player of all time in my book. His opening play and analysis was just a notch above anyone else at the time. Gotta love his "Hammer" theory and opening stuff. Other players I remember were: Dan Allen (tough Texas player), Tom Braunlich (one of the originals and a good promoter of the game), Robert Colbert (I remember liking Robert quite a bit), David Comberrell (interesting), Marvin Cooper (surprising), John Hawkins (runner up to Rollie and a good problem solver), Peter Hudson (another tough Texas player), Grady Johnston (I liked Grady and he was another Texas player), and Dave Wallace (the very tough leader of the Missouri gang).
I would get the Pente newsletters and devour them. I studied the openings and had a pretty deep opening book repertoire. Of course being a teen with little else to do was to my advantage. I also created some Pente problems. I always liked making them better than solving them.
Parker Brothers bought the game and it died. The last tournament I played in was the little publicized 1984 US Open Pente Tournament. I won that tournament beating my brother Bill, Rollie Tesh and David Comberrell while splitting with Dan Allen and Peter Hudson. Rollie also finished 10-2 and I think we split the prize and I got the wooden board. Blanking Tesh was quite satisfying.
After that, I did not play again until a few years ago online. Other resources for you would be the newsletters, Braunlich's books, the book from the 1983 tournament and the various Pente sites already mentioned.
Although Pente's past is brighter than its future, it is still a fun game.
