Gomoku, Reversi, Connect Four — What the First Ten Moves Decide

In abstract board games — Gomoku, Reversi, Connect Four — there are no dice and no cards, so there are no excuses: every loss is a decision you made. That also makes this the most study-efficient genre there is; a handful of principles produces an immediate jump in win rate. Here are the opening principles the three games share, plus the one counterintuitive twist each game adds.

1. The shared principle: the center is a count of possibilities

Standard first moves — near the center in Gomoku, the middle column in Connect Four — exist for one reason. A center stone can build lines in all four directions (row, column, both diagonals), while a corner stone surrenders half its directions to the wall. Connect Four's center column participates in 13 of the 69 possible four-in-a-rows — more than any other column. In abstract games, a good move is not the one that looks strong now; it is the one that preserves the most future possibilities.

2. There is only one winning technique: the double threat

In all three games, a threat your opponent can block in one move is not a real threat. Games are won by moves that create two threats at once: the open-three-in-two-directions '3-3' in Gomoku, or a double threat in Connect Four where two different cells each complete a four. Your opponent blocks one; you win with the other.

The training method is equally concrete: every turn, count how many threats your move creates. As your zero-threat 'just placing' moves get rarer and two-threat moves start appearing, you have already climbed a level. Defense is the mirror image — the best defensive move occupies, one move early, the square where your opponent's double threat would be born.

3. Reversi's twist: the player who flips more, loses

Reversi (Othello) is the most counterintuitive game in the genre. Early moves that flip many discs are usually mistakes: the more discs you own, the more legal moves you hand your opponent, and the moment you concede a square diagonally adjacent to a corner (the X-square), you gift them a corner that can never be flipped back. The expert's early-game goals are minimum disc count and maximum mobility (legal moves).

Remember three rankings: corners are absolute strengths, X-squares are absolute weaknesses, and until the midgame, fewer discs is better. Only start counting discs in the last twenty moves.

4. Tempo: the moment you waste a move, you lose the game's design

Alongside the double threat, the deciding concept is tempo. While you create threats and your opponent merely answers them, you are the one designing the game. Play one move that threatens nothing, and the designer's seat changes hands. Chains of open fours in Gomoku, forcing sequences in Connect Four that set up a completion square on the correct parity row — all tempo play. Chess's opening maxim 'don't move the same piece twice' is the same idea: never spend a whole move on nothing.

5. A checklist for your next ten games

Try this for ten games. Open in the center (in Reversi, prioritize mobility instead). Count the threats every move of yours creates, and pre-empt the squares where your opponent's double threat would appear. In Reversi, don't fear having few discs before the endgame. And when you lose, review only your last five moves — in abstract games, the losing move is almost always among them.