– The first stone must be placed in the center of the board and the second stone must be placed at least three intersections away from the first stone (two empty intersections in between the two stones). The tournament rule was created by Tom Braunlich to reduce the advantage held by the first player. Swap, also known as D-Pente, or DK-Pente if applied to Keryo Pente, is a tournament rule variant that replaces the Pro rule with a version of the pie rule. It is a modified version of the opening rule proposed in the 1983 Pente Newsletter that attempts to mitigate first player advantage more effectively than the Pro rule by allowing for a greater variety of openings. The first player places two white stones and two black stones anywhere on the board. The second player then chooses which color to play. Play proceeds from there as normal with white moving first again. The Swap opening rule is available for online play on Pente.org after being implemented at the suggestion of Pente player Don Banks. Swap2, borrowed from professional Gomoku, is a modification of the Swap rule. It seeks to limit the tentative first player's ability to offer known (to them) Swap openings that may be unclear to the tentative second player seeing it for the first time. The first player places three stones on the board, two white and one black. The second player then has three options: They can choose to play as white They can choose to play as black and place a second black stone Or they can place two more stones, one black and one white, and pass the choice of which color to play back to the first player. Because the tentative first player doesn't know where the tentative second player will place the additional stones if they take option 2 or 3, the swap2 opening protocol limits excessive studying of a line by only one of the players. Swap2 Pente is available for online play on Vint.ee and Board Game Arena. Strategy and tactics Initiative Initiative is a fundamental concept for winning Pente. Initiative is the ability to make a threat or move without having to respond to an opponent's play, while forcing them to respond to yours. A player with initiative essentially controls the state of the board and will eventually win if the other player isn't able to take it