In previous chapters, we met with fouls, as well as how a second player can use them. In this topic we will talk about the third difference between Renju and daggers – the debut regulations. You can read the description of various opening regulations here, and we will focus on why they are needed at all.
It would seem, why further complicate the rules of the game after the introduction of fouls? After all, the fouls give a significant advantage to the second player and it seems that the first because of the ban on building two forks out of three is almost impossible to win. However, this impression is deceptive.

Long years of gaming practice in Japan in the second half of the 20th century led to the realization that neither fouls nor a decrease in the size of the playing field actually equalize the players’ chances and the first player still has an advantage sufficient to guarantee a win. However, the specificity of Renju is such that not all debuts have guaranteed Black wins (the first three moves are considered to be the first three moves; the total number of debuts is 26, we’ll talk about them later). Therefore, it is only necessary to exclude non-playable debuts from practice, but how to implement it? This is where the debut regulations help – special rules for setting the first five moves.

Two rules were proposed. First: once per game, only after setting the debut, the second player can change color. This rule allows you to exclude from gaming practice debuts, in which there is a black win. If the first player puts on such a debut, then the second player simply changes color and will play for the winning side.
The second rule: the player with black must offer not one fifth move, but two, one of which will leave the player with white, and the other will remove. These are the so-called fifth alternative moves: Black offers two (and in more progressive debut regulations more than two) alternatives (and the proposed fifth alternative moves should not be symmetrical). This rule allows you to increase the number of playable debuts.
This debut regulation was named RIF, in honor of the International Renju Federation (Renju International Federation).

So, this is how the game starts in Renju according to the RIF debut regulations: the first player puts three stones on the board at once: two black and one white. The first black stone must be placed in the center, the white stone in the square 3 * 3, the second black – in the square 5 * 5.

The second player has the right to change the color, that is, in fact he chooses who will play with what color until the end of the game. The one who turned out to be white makes the fourth move (for the fourth and further moves there are no restrictions).

The one who turned out to be black offers two asymmetrical fifth alternative moves.

Playing with white leaves one of them and then, starting with White’s move, the game continues as usual.

In the final part we will talk about the debuts in Renju and their names.

In this thread, you learned:
What is the debut regulations and why it is needed
What is the debut RIF regulations
How does the party start in Renju