![]() The game plays similarly to the original Connect Four, except players must now get five pieces in a row to win. Two additional board columns, already filled with player pieces in an alternating pattern, are added to the left and right sides of the standard 6-by-7 game board. The Five-in-a-Row variation for Connect Four is a game played on a 6 high, 9 wide grid. The first player to set aside ten discs of their color wins the game. If it was not part of a "connect four", then it must be placed back on the board through a slot at the top into any open space in an alternate column (whenever possible) and the turn ends, switching to the other player. If the disc that was removed was part of a four-disc connection at the time of its removal, the player sets it aside out of play and immediately takes another turn. Gameplay works by players taking turns removing a disc of one's own color through the bottom of the board. Taking turns, each player places one of their own color discs into the slots filling up only the bottom row, then moving on to the next row until it is filled, and so forth until all rows have been filled. ![]() The first player to connect four of their discs horizontally, vertically, or diagonally wins the game.īefore play begins, Pop 10 is set up differently from the traditional game. Popping a disc out from the bottom drops every disc above it down one space, changing their relationship with the rest of the board and changing the possibilities for a connection. During each turn, a player can either add another disc from the top, or if one has any discs of their own color on the bottom row, remove (or "pop out") a disc of one's own color from the bottom. PopOut starts the same as traditional gameplay, with an empty board and players alternating turns placing their own colored discs into the board. For other uses, see Pop Out (disambiguation). Size variations include 5×4, 6×5, 8×7, 9×7, 10×7, 8×8, Infinite Connect-Four, and Cylinder-Infinite Connect-Four. The most commonly-used Connect Four board size is 7 columns × 6 rows. Many variations are popular with game theory and artificial intelligence research, rather than with physical game boards and gameplay by persons. There are many variations of Connect Four with differing game board sizes, game pieces, and gameplay rules. In other words, by starting with the four outer columns, the first player allows the second player to force a win. For the edges of the game board, column 1 and 2 on left (or column 7 and 6 on right), the exact move-value score for first player start is loss on the 40th move, and loss on the 42nd move, respectively. The game is a theoretical draw when the first player starts in the columns adjacent to the center. With perfect play, the first player can force a win, on or before the 41st move by starting in the middle column. The solved conclusion for Connect Four is first-player-win. The code for solving Connect Four with these methods is also the basis for the Fhourstones integer performance benchmark. The artificial intelligence algorithms able to strongly solve Connect Four are minimax or negamax, with optimizations that include alpha-beta pruning, move ordering, and transposition tables. At the time of the initial solutions for Connect Four, brute-force analysis was not deemed feasible given the game's complexity and the computer technology available at the time.Ĭonnect Four has since been solved with brute-force methods, beginning with John Tromp's work in compiling an 8-ply database (February 4, 1995). ![]() ![]() Allen also describes winning strategies in his analysis of the game. Allis describes a knowledge-based approach, with nine strategies, as a solution for Connect Four. The game was first solved by James Dow Allen (October 1, 1988), and independently by Victor Allis (October 16, 1988). For classic Connect Four played on a 7-column-wide, 6-row-high grid, there are 4,531,985,219,092 positions for all game boards populated with 0 to 42 pieces. One measure of complexity of the Connect Four game is the number of possible games board positions. Connect Four also belongs to the classification of an adversarial, zero-sum game, since a player's advantage is an opponent's disadvantage. ![]() If the board fills up before either player achieves four in a row, then the game is a draw.Ĭonnect Four is a two-player game with perfect information for both sides, meaning that nothing is hidden from anyone. The two players then alternate turns dropping one of their discs at a time into an unfilled column, until the second player, with red discs, achieves a diagonal four in a row, and wins the game. Milton Bradley, Connect Four "Pretty Sneaky, Sis" television commercial, 1977 Ī gameplay example (right), shows the first player starting Connect Four by dropping one of their yellow discs into the center column of an empty game board. ![]()
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