Pente is played on a 19x19 grid with stones in two different colors.  Each player chooses one set of stones; then the players take turns placing their stones on any unoccupied intersection until one player wins.

There are two ways to win:  If a player gets five or more stones in a straight line (across, down, or diagonally), or captures five pairs of the opponent's stones, that player wins.

Stones may be captured in pairs only.  To capture a pair of stones, a player must place one stone on either side of the pair.  When the second side is placed, the center two stones are captured.  This counts as one capture.  The game continues until a player gets 5 in a row or captures 5 pairs.

A rather nice Pente game on the Palm Pilot (OS V2.0 minimum).

The Pente archive includes the English, German, and French versions of the game.  Thanks to Antoine for the French translation.

The computer playing levels get rather slow at level 5 and 6.  The number of moves that need to be examined grows wildly as the search depth increases.

The Pente.zip archive contains only the Pente.prc binary as built by GCC.  [Also available at FreewarePalm and PalmGear]  Download this archive if you want to play Pente.

See also: Gary Gabrel's story of the Pente board game.

Please send any suggestions and/or bug reports to Palm@Sinz.ORG