Vying Games : Pente

Pente is a board game in the family of connect x-in-a-row style games. It was invented in 1978 by Gary Gabrel. It is most similar in play to the game Gomoku.

How to Play

Two players (black and white) take turn placing black and white stones at the intersections of a Go board. White plays first, and players then alternate placing one stone at a time.

Players can win in one of two ways:

Connect 5 stones in-a-row (horizontally, vertically, or diagonally)
Complete 5 captures (10 stones)

Players can capture their opponent's stones by surrounding a two in-a-row with two of their own stones. The pattern looks like this: xoox. If 'x' is black and 'o' is white, then black will capture the two white stones, removing them from the board.

Players cannot play into a capture. For example, if there is a pattern like this: xo_x, there will be no capture if white ('o') plays into the middle. All the pieces would stay on the board (xoox). Which is to say, you cannot directly cause you're own stones to be captured (you'll have to leave that up to your opponent).

On Vying Games, we display your score as the number of stones captured (as opposed to the number of times you've captured), so you need 10 stones to win.