Pente

Pente is an abstract strategy board game for two or more players, invented in 1977 by Gary Gabrel while he worked as a dishwasher at a pizza restaurant in Stillwater, Oklahoma. It belongs to the family of m,n,k games played on a grid, in Pente's case a nineteen-by-nineteen board resembling a Go board. Players alternate placing stones of their own color, and a game can be won in either of two ways: aligning five or more stones in an unbroken row in any direction, or capturing ten or more of the opponent's stones. Captures use a custodial mechanic unusual among placement games: flanking an adjacent pair of the opponent's stones with one's own stones on both ends removes the flanked pair from the board. This capture rule sets Pente apart from simpler five-in-a-row games such as Gomoku, adding a tactical layer where players must balance building toward alignment against defending vulnerable pairs. Pente was commercially successful after its invention and has remained in print through multiple publishers.