Four in a Row — Rules

Basics and the match

Four in a Row is played on an upright board of columns and rows. The classic board has 7 columns and 6 rows. Two players take turns dropping a disc of their colour into any column that is not full, and the disc falls to the lowest free cell of that column.

Goal

The first player to line up four of their discs in a row — horizontally, vertically or diagonally — wins. If the board fills up and nobody has a row, the game is a draw.

Red moves first, yellow second. You cannot drop a disc into a full column.

Notation

Columns are lettered from left to right: a, b, c, d, e, f, g. Rows are counted from the bottom: the lowest row is row 1. Cell d1 is the middle of the bottom row. In the move list at the table a move is the column letter: 7. ● d means that the seventh disc was dropped into column d.

Playing at the table

Point at a column and a disc of your colour appears above it; click to drop it. On a phone the first tap chooses the column and the second tap drops the disc. With the keyboard, the arrow keys choose a column, Enter drops, and a digit from 1 to 7 drops straight into that column.

The match

With perfect play on the 7×6 board the player who moves first wins. That is why a rated game is a match of two games: in the second game colours and the first move are swapped.

A game gives 1 point for a win, ½ for a draw and 0 for a loss. The match result is the sum: 2:0, 1½:½ or 1:1. A 1:1 score is a drawn match — there is no tie-break.

Between the games the board keeps the finished position until every player presses "Ready for the next game".

You may concede a single game of the match with the "Concede the game" button under the board; the next game is still played. To give up the whole match, use the usual resign button of the table.

Time

The clock works as in chess: a time bank for the whole match plus an increment for every move. If your time runs out, you lose the match. There is no pass and no adjournment on time.

Rating

Rating is calculated for the match only: two games with alternating first move even out the colours. A single game is unrated.

Variants

Every variant follows these basics; what changes is described in its own topic: classic, single game, five in a row, PopOut, small board, misère, cylinder, obstacles, drawn opening, three players, two on two.