Connect Four strategy: Win (almost) every time you play

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Have you ever been completely humbled by a niece or nephew at Connect Four and been left questioning your entire existence?

I don’t mean to brag, but I’ve not. Not ever.

For about a month or so, a really long time ago, Connect Four became a massive deal at my high school. We even held a tournament, which, looking back on it as an adult, was insanely well organised. I made it to the semi-finals after dominating my group stage, narrowly losing to the eventual winner, so yeah… I guess it’s fair to say that I know a thing or two about matching four counters in a row under pressure.

And by the end of this article, so will you.

So when – and know that it is a “when,” not an “if,” because children can be vicious – little Johnny or Sally try to run it back expecting to repeat the annihilation, you’ll be able to send them home to mummy and daddy crying their little eyes out, restoring balance, and regaining your pride.

You’re a grownup. And you will have your revenge.

And on the off-chance you happen to be a grownup who works for a business that’s on the look out for more effective audience engagement techniques, after I’ve shared the four tenets of my winning Connect Four strategy, I’m also going to give you some broad strokes advice about customising online Connect Four games to improve your approach to communications.

So, come for the Connect Four strategy advice, stay to discover the missing piece of your audience engagement strategy.

Everybody wins! (Except any bozos foolish enough to face you at connect four after you’ve read this!)

The four tenets of a winning Connect Four strategy

I’ve divided this advice quite neatly into four tenets, or pillars, which if you follow, you’ll win pretty much every game of Connect Four you play unless you come up against someone that has a decent grasp of the game.

This is because Connect Four is a solved game. Assuming both players play a perfect game, the person who goes first (known as the odd player) will win.

However, regardless of playing a perfect game or being a complete debutante, going first is always an advantage, however, you’re not always going to get to go first, and these tenets account for that.

Did you know? For such a relatively simple concept that feels as old as time, Connect Four’s history is more recent than mankind’s first trip to the moon. It didn’t hit shelves until 1974.

Tenet one: Hold the middle of the grid

The standard Connect Four grid is made up of seven columns. Whether you’re connecting horizontally or diagonally, this will require having at least one chip in the middle column, therefore, you’re going to want to be really conscious of banking as much real estate here as possible.

Not only does it create more opportunities for you to connect four, but it blocks off opportunities for your opponent.

This isn’t to say you should just exhaust the middle column and work outwards like a robot. This misses out on opportunities to win games more quickly, and could make you susceptible to a loss if your opponent is employing the odds-evens strategy (outlined in tenet four).

For example, the fastest way to win (at least against terrible players) is getting three counters down horizontally with a slot at either side so you can connect four either way. Unseasoned opponents can either try to mirror you, playing on top of your pieces, or silo their attention to another part of the grid and only realise when it’s too late.

The odd player can win in the fastest way in seven moves, the even player in eight moves.

Tenet two: Play aggressive and create threats

When you play another person at Connect Four, you’re playing them as much as you’re playing the game. If you’re constantly getting rows of three together you’re creating threats, and you’re forcing your opponent to defend rather than construct their own offence.

Knowing the basics and controlling the middle of the grid allows you to play at a faster pace so you can sometimes rush your opponent into making mistakes.

Tenet three: Think ahead and set traps using known patterns

This is intermediate stuff with Connect Four. When you know how to set traps, which is to say, when you have go-to patterns you can create which force your opponent to defend in a way that allows you to connect four, you’re going to become impossible to beat for most people.

A couple of my favourites include:

This one, which we used to call “45 degrees of danger” or “the clamp.”

And this one, which kind of looks like a jaunty arrow. The earlier you can set up a “point of no return” on this one, or the lower down the board you can force your opponent’s into this trap, the better, as if you’ve got it set high on the board, someone playing the odds-evens strategy could render it too little, too late.

Tenet-four: Odds and evens strategy

You know those games where nearly every slot is full save for a column you’re been avoiding, and counting the chips, and counting the moves, unless your opponent loses their mind and goes in that avoided column before they have to, they’re going to win by default?

A lot of lesser players accidentally win this way, but there’s an advanced strategy you can employ to force this sort of outcome.

If you go first, so you’re the odd player, you want to be building threes that could become four on the odd rows of the grid. For example, in the image below, yellow is the odd player, and has set it up so they can connect four on the fifth row (an odd row) – forcing an end game where they’re the victor.

If you go second, so you’re the even player, you want to be building threes that could become four on the even rows of the grid.

You’ll still be paying attention to the principles of holding the centre, looking for opportunities to build patterns, and playing disciplined defence, but setting up odds or evens is how you essentially force what we’ll call an end-game win.

Mastering the odd-evens strategy is the hardest form of offence for most players to see coming because they don’t understand it, and you can’t defend against what you don’t understand.

Pro tip: Look to execute this as low down on the grid as possible. If you come up against someone who knows what they’re doing, they might out-even your odds strategy, or out-odd your evens strategy, and connect four lower on the grid, and sooner than you.

Joint honours: Master of Connect Four, master of gamified comms

Now you’ve had a masterclass at Connect Four, let’s talk about how you can use this game to bolster your approach to marketing and internal communications.

Capturing user attention and focus through gamification

Exhibit one, you’ve just read over 1,000 words learning how to get better at Connect Four. This isn’t like tennis or five-a-side or darts. There aren’t clubs or local leagues where you being a connect four savant carries any social cache.

That’s because you’re engaged in a not overwhelming but still challenging game. It’s captured your attention.

While not everyone is going to go out and read up on Connect Four strategy, most people will have a go at Connect Four given the chance. As a result, a custom-branded online Connect Four game makes for a highly effective engagement solution.

Using gameplay to connect audiences to objectives

Using Drimify’s Connect Four template, you can customise the background, the chips, the grid, add a data collection form, and content screens before and after the experience to get across branded messaging. You can even include a call to action button (CTA) on the final screen to redirect players to strategic web-pages, whether that’s a product page, a sign-up page on your company intranet, or anything else that serves your business objectives.

Customised online Connect Four games work for businesses because you’re letting your audience win.The difficulty on any decent gamification platform’s Connect Four maker is set equidistant between grandmaster and useless, which is to say that pretty much anyone can beat the computer, but it’s not going to just roll over and say uncle.

They’re going to ultimately associate your content, your brand, and your message with a positive feeling, because everyone loves to feel like a winner (and like it wasn’t just handed to them).

Next steps

If you’re even mildly curious about how customised online Connect Four games can help you achieve business goals, create a free Drimify account today, and start playing around with the Connect Four builder to see what’s possible.

You can even start a free trial to test out your creation on different devices and with your various integrations.

(And purely for the love of the game, look for opportunities to paste people at Connect Four. What’s the point of taking tips from a self-proclaimed Connect Four legend if you’re not going to go out and use them? Plenty of bars and cafes have Connect Four sets sitting around, so go show people what’s up.)

Want to know more?