Click a column to drop your disc. First to connect four in a row — across, down or diagonally — wins.
How to play Connect Four
Discs fall to the lowest empty spot in the column you pick, and players alternate turns. Win by making a line of four before your opponent — and remember you must also block their threats. Classic tips: take the center column early (it belongs to the most possible lines), build “double threats” that can't both be blocked, and watch for diagonal lines, which are the easiest to miss. Easy plays randomly, Medium blocks and attacks a few moves deep, and Hard looks far enough ahead to punish most mistakes.
The centre column decides most games
Count how many four-in-a-row lines pass through each column and the centre wins by a wide margin — it belongs to more potential lines than any other file on the board. Taking it with your first move, and contesting it afterwards, is the single strongest habit you can build. Games where one player owns the middle three columns are usually decided long before anyone connects four.
Connect Four is also solved, and the result is sharper than in tic-tac-toe: with perfect play the first player wins, but only by opening in the exact centre column. Any other first move gives the second player at least a draw.
Threats, double threats and the odd-even rule
A threat is a spot that would complete four for you. One threat gets blocked; two threats that cannot both be blocked win the game. Building a double threat usually means creating a row of three with open squares at both ends, or two separate lines that share a single unfilled cell.
Because discs fall to the lowest free slot, height matters as much as position. A threat sitting on an odd row can only be reached after an odd number of discs fills the column below it, which means it belongs to the player who moves first. Even rows belong to the second player. Experienced players deliberately build threats on the rows their parity gives them, and refuse to fill columns that would hand the opponent access to theirs.
This is why a move that looks harmless can lose. Dropping a disc into a column raises the landing height for everyone, and sometimes that single disc is what lets the opponent finally reach a threat they set up ten moves earlier.
Practical habits
Check the diagonals before every move. They are the lines people miss, in both attack and defence.
Before dropping a disc, look at the square directly above it. If that square completes a line for the opponent, the move loses on the spot.
Block a three-in-a-row immediately, but check first whether you have a win of your own — blocking when you could have won is a common and expensive habit.
Keep your discs connected. Scattered pieces across six columns rarely combine into anything.
Against the easy setting the computer plays randomly, which is the right place to practise spotting threats without pressure.
The center column. Connect Four is mathematically solved: with perfect play, the first player wins by starting in the center, draws from the columns next to it, and actually loses by starting anywhere else. The center passes through the most possible four-in-a-row lines.
How strong is the Hard computer?
Hard searches several moves ahead with a minimax algorithm, so it blocks direct threats, sets up its own lines and punishes most one-move mistakes. It is not unbeatable — build a double threat (two winning spots at once) and it can't block both.
Can two people play on one device?
Yes — switch Mode to “2 players” and take turns tapping columns on the same screen: red goes first, then yellow. It works great on a phone or tablet placed between you.
How big is a Connect Four board?
The standard board is 7 columns wide and 6 rows tall, holding 42 discs in total — the size this game uses. That geometry matters: an odd number of columns gives the single centre column its special power, and 7×6 is the layout that has been analysed most deeply by mathematicians.
What is the odd and even row strategy?
Advanced players count rows from the bottom and plan threats by parity: the first player (red) wants a winning threat waiting on an odd row (1, 3, 5), while the second player wants one on an even row. As the board fills up, those threats tend to come due on exactly the right turn.
Can Connect Four end in a draw?
Yes. If all 42 cells fill up without either player making four in a row, the game is a draw. It is rare in casual play because the 7×6 board offers 69 possible winning lines, but careful defensive play from both sides can get there.