player known as forbidden moves, or adopting Keryo Pente. Tournament Gomoku currently uses what is called the swap2 opening where a player places three stones (two black and one white) on any of the intersections of the board. The second player can then either choose to play as white and place the 4th stone, swap colors and control the black stones, or put two more stones (one black and one white) and pass the choice of which color to play as to their opponent. When analyzing tournament data for Gomoku using identical opening rules to Pro-Pente, an FPA of ~67% was calculated. When swap2 was adopted for tournament play, analysis of tournament games showed an FPA drop to about 52%. In light of this, the same swap2 opening was adopted for Pente on vint.ee and Board Game Arena, two gaming websites, as an attempt to mitigate FPA in high level play. Variants Gameplay Keryo Keryo-Pente was proposed in 1983 by World Pente Champion Rollie Tesh as a way to balance tournament play. The first Keryo Pente tournament took place on June 16, 1984. Keryo-Pente is similar to Pente, changing only the capture rules. As in Pente, If you place five or more stones in a row in any direction, horizontally, vertically, or diagonally, you win the game. You may capture pairs like Pente, and in addition you may capture three stones in a row by the same custodial capture method. If you capture 15 or more stones you win the game. Rollie Tesh believed that, in comparison to the first player advantage mitigation rules used by Renju and Gomoku, such as overlines and double restrictions, Keryo Pente was a more interesting proposal. Keryo Pente mitigates the first player advantage (FPA) by, "...giving the defender more tactical chances... the attacker has to be more careful in his play; in regular Pente the attack often is too easy, as if the attack plays itself." Poof Poof Pente was invented by Pente Player Tom Cooley. In normal Pente, when a player places a stone on an empty intersection and creates a pair flanked on either side by the opponent's stones, no capture occurs. In Poof Pente this is not the case. Any time a pair is flanked between two of their opponent's stones capture occurs. So if a line of stones are arranged XO_X and O places their stone so that it creates