Pente

Pente is a strategy board game for two or more players, created in 1977 by Gary Gabrel, a dishwasher at Hideaway Pizza, in Stillwater, Oklahoma. Customers played Pente at Hideaway Pizza on checkerboard tablecloths while waiting for their orders to arrive. Thirty years later, patrons are still playing Pente at Hideaway Pizza, although now with roll-up Pente boards. Pente is based on the Japanese game ninuki-renju, a variant of renju or gomoku that is played on a Go board of 19x19 intersections with white and black stones. Like renju and ninuki-renju, Pente allow captures, but Pente added a new opening rule. In the nineteenth century, gomoku was introduced to Britain where it was known as "Go Bang." (borrowed from Japanese "goban" 碁盤 meaning "go board")

History

Pente is a registered trademark of Hasbro for strategy game equipment. Pente (πέντε) is the number five in Greek.

Hasbro ceased distribution of Pente in 1993. It later licensed the game to Winning Moves, a classic games publisher that resurrected the game in 2004. The 2004 version includes 4 extra stones, called power stones, that can be played in the Pente Plus version.