Four in a Row — Strategy

Playing against the bots

In the bot rooms you play a solver — a program that knows the exact answer for any position on a 7×6 board. The bot’s strength is set by its level:

| Level | How it plays | |---|---| | 1 Novice | looks a couple of moves ahead and often misses a threat | | 2 Amateur | sees further but sometimes misses a threat | | 3 Experienced | rarely makes mistakes | | 4 Master | plays deep and without noise | | 5 Perfect | plays without mistakes |

The perfect bot

Against the perfect bot a human can at best share the match 1:1. The bot never loses a game in which it moves first. You can win only your own game with the first move — and only with flawless play: the centre, odd threats, not a single cell under the bot’s threat. This is fair and stated on the bot’s card.

How to learn

• Start with levels one and two and catch the bot with double threats.
• At level three the bot stops blundering — learn to build threats of the right parity.
• Against levels four and five play the match for the sake of the game with the first move: a draw with the second move against them is already a good result.

After a game, open it in the archive and step through it: clicking a move in the move list shows the position after it.