Four in a Row Strategy: How to Win Almost Every Game

Four in a Row looks like a children's game and plays like one for about three moves. Then it turns out to be a solved strategy game with real theory behind it — the same theory that applies to Connect 4® and every other drop-four game on a 7×6 rack. Here's that theory, from the tips that stop you losing in five moves to the ideas that beat our Hard bot.

Rule zero: take the center column

Every winning line of four must pass through the middle of the board far more often than the edges. The center column touches more potential four-in-a-rows than any other — and with perfect play, the first player wins by opening in the center, while opening in the edge columns actually loses. If you take nothing else from this guide: play your first disc in column 4, and when in doubt later, play as close to the center as you safely can.

Beginner habits that instantly raise your win rate

• •Scan before you drop: every turn, check whether your opponent has three in a row anywhere — including diagonals, which cause most beginner losses.
• •Don't feed the stack: before dropping a disc, look at the slot directly above where it will land. If your move gives the opponent a winning square, play elsewhere.
• •Threats beat discs: a move that creates a line of three the opponent must answer keeps you in control of the game's tempo.
• •Diagonals are sneaky in both directions — when you build low across the middle, you're usually building diagonal chances without your opponent noticing.

The double threat: how games are actually won

Against anyone who blocks single threats, you win by making two at once. The classic shape is a horizontal pair of open threes stacked so that one move completes either — or two winning squares in the same column, one above the other, so any block hands you the win on top of it. Building toward a "7" shape (three across with a diagonal hanging off one end) is the most common way to manufacture a double threat from an ordinary-looking position.

Odd and even rows: the expert layer

Number the rows 1 (bottom) to 6 (top). Because players alternate filling columns from the bottom, the endgame usually comes down to who is forced to fill squares they don't want to. The rule of thumb: the first player wants a threat on an odd row(1, 3, or 5), the second player wants one on an even row (2, 4, or 6). When the board fills up and both sides are just completing columns, odd-row threats fall to the first player and even-row threats to the second. A single quiet odd-row threat, parked in move eight and ignored for the rest of the game, very often decides it.

This is also why a threat you can't cash immediately is still worth building: it poisons a column. Your opponent can never play the square below your winning slot, which shrinks their safe moves until they run out — strategy players call that zugzwang.

Beating the bots

• •Easy plays loosely — punish it by building any line of three; it won't always answer.
• •Normal blocks reliably and takes wins it can see. Beat it with double threats: it handles one threat at a time.
• •Hard reads six moves ahead. Quick tactics rarely work — you'll need center control from move one plus a patient odd/even-row threat it can't defuse. Trading discs aimlessly loses; every move should build toward a threat or deny one.

Practice makes the patterns automatic

Rounds take about two minutes, which makes this a perfect game to drill: play a few games against Normal focusing only on spotting diagonals, then a few more where you try to engineer one double threat per game. Once those are habits, Hard — and your friends — stop being a problem. You can play solo against the bots, share one screen, or send a friend an invite link and settle it online.