How to Win at Connect 4: Strategy That Works Against a Real Person

Connect 4 looks like a game of spotting threes before the other person does. Between two people who both spot threes, it's a game about which squares each of you can never afford to play under. Here's what to think about, roughly in the order it starts mattering.

Take the centre

The middle column is part of more possible lines of four than any other: every horizontal line through the middle of the board has to use it. A disc at the edge can only ever reach one way.

On the standard 7 by 6 board, the first player can force a win with perfect play, but only by starting in the centre column. Nobody at the table is playing perfectly, but it tells you where the value is. If you go first, open in the middle. If you go second, answer in the middle.

Look one move ahead for them, not for you

Before every move, ask what your opponent would play if it were their turn, and whether your move lets them. Most games between casual players end because someone dropped a disc that gave the other player the square on top of it. Every disc you play makes a new square available. Check that square before you let go.

Build two threats at once

A single three-in-a-row gets blocked. Two threats that need different squares can't both be blocked, and that's how most games are won. The classic shape is three in a row along the bottom with both ends open. A more useful one is a diagonal and a horizontal that share a disc, which people tend not to notice until it's too late.

If you can't see a way to win, look for a move that makes two threes at once. If your opponent is one move from doing that, stop it now, because you won't be able to afterwards.

Threats you can't play yet

A threat doesn't have to be playable to matter. If you need a square that's three rows up an empty column, it stays a threat for the rest of the game. Neither of you wants to be the one who plays the square directly underneath it, because that hands the winning square to the other person.

As the board fills, players run out of safe moves and someone is forced to play under a threat. This is how good players win. They set up a threat early, high up, and wait for the board to fill.

Odd and even rows

Count rows from the bottom, starting at one. If nothing else happens and the columns just fill up, the first player ends up playing the odd rows and the second player the even ones.

So if you went first, a threat on an odd row (the first, third or fifth) will tend to fall to you in the endgame. If you went second, you want your threats on even rows. A threat on the wrong row for you is much weaker than it looks. You don't need to calculate this exactly. Knowing which rows are yours is enough to choose between two otherwise similar moves.

Small habits that win games

• Don't fill a column just because you have nothing better. Every disc changes who gets the square above.
• When you block, check what the block sets up for them on top of it.
• Watch the diagonals. Horizontal threats are easy to see, and most surprise losses are diagonal.
• When you're ahead, make the board smaller: play moves that reduce the number of safe squares.

Try it

You can practise against the robot with Play solo, then send a link to someone you'd like to beat. Once the standard game starts to feel solved between the two of you, try the bigger boards, or Pop Out, where you can remove one of your own discs from the bottom row and drop everything above it. Rematch keeps a running score and swaps who goes first, which matters now that you know about odd and even rows.

If you like this sort of slow, positional fight, Reversi and Checkers reward the same kind of thinking.