Connect 4
Seven columns, six rows, and the discs fall. First to four in a line wins.
7×6 · four in a row · play a person instead
How to play Connect 4
- Players take turns dropping one disc into a column. It lands on the lowest empty square.
- Four of your discs in a row — across, up, or diagonally — wins immediately.
- A column with six discs in it is full and cannot be played.
- If all 42 squares fill with no line, the game is a draw.
Sold as a boxed game since 1974 and solved by computer in 1988: with perfect play the first player wins by taking the centre column and never giving it up. Knowing that does not make it easy — the winning line is often twenty moves deep.
How to get better
Take the middle
The centre column sits in more four-in-a-row lines than any other. The engine opens there every time, and so should you.
Count the parity
Threats on odd rows favour the first player, even rows the second. If your only winning square is one your opponent gets to fill first, it is not a threat at all.
Build two threats
One threat gets blocked. Two squares that both complete a four, and your opponent can only cover one.
Watch what you hand them
Every disc you drop makes the square above it playable. Losing games are usually lost by setting up the square the opponent needed.
Does the first player always win Connect 4?
With perfect play from the opening centre drop, yes — the game was solved in 1988. Against anything less than perfect play it is a real contest, which is why the Master level here still loses games it opens badly.
Do diagonal lines count?
Yes. Four in a row in any direction wins, and diagonals are the ones people miss.
The other games
Gomoku
Five in a row on a 15×15 grid. Simple to learn, ruthless to master.
Connect6
Six in a row, two stones a turn — the fair, modern cousin of Gomoku.
Pente
Five in a row — or take five pairs off the board and win that way.
Hex
Join your two sides of the board. No lines, no captures, no draws.
Dots & Boxes
Draw a line, close a box, go again. Everything is decided in the endgame.