The gomoku opponent on this site scores every candidate point by the threat patterns it creates and blocks, then searches the strongest shortlist. It is not a neural network, but it will not miss a four and it will not walk past an open three.
What each level does
| Level | Search depth | Behaviour |
|---|---|---|
| Beginner | None | Plays one of the better-scoring points, sometimes not the best |
| Casual | 2 moves | Blocks threats, finds simple wins |
| Club | 3 moves | Sees short forcing sequences |
| Strong | 4 moves | Reads combinations and sets up its own |
At every level it first checks whether it can win immediately, then whether you can, and plays accordingly. So there is no level at which you can sneak a four past it. The difference is in how far ahead it plans.
How to beat casual and club
Both handle single threats well and struggle with combinations built quietly. The approach: avoid making threats early. Place stones in an angled cluster that does not yet form a three, so the opponent has nothing to react to and spends its moves on its own development.
Then find the crossing point and build both lines to two stones each. When you play the combination it will block the four correctly and lose to the three.
Playing against strong
At depth four the opponent sees most short combinations coming and will occupy your crossing points pre-emptively. Two things help.
- Make it defend. Every forcing four you play costs it a move and lets you choose where its stone lands. Use fours to steer its stones away from your target area.
- Build three directions, not two. It will defuse the obvious crossing point; if you have a third line available, the defused point becomes the second-best plan rather than the only one.
Its blind spots
The pattern scoring looks at lines through a point, so it is strongest at local threats and weakest at slow positional build-up. Stones that do not yet form a two are nearly invisible to it. That is the gap to exploit.
It also does not model your intentions. It reacts to what is on the board, not to what you are obviously planning, so a plan that requires three quiet moves will usually go unchallenged for two of them.
Take White for a real test
Free-style gomoku favours the first player. Playing Black against the computer is the easy side; switching to White in the side selector makes every level noticeably harder.
Training exercises
- The quiet build. Play ten moves without ever making a three. See how strong a position you can create while the opponent has nothing to block.
- The forcing drill. From a balanced position, play only fours for four moves in a row and see where its stones end up. This teaches how forcing moves steer the board.
- The defensive game. Play White at strong and aim to survive fifty moves. Losing is fine; the goal is spotting its combination one move earlier each time.
Using undo well
Undo steps back past the computer's reply as well as your own. When you lose to a combination, take back four moves — not one — and look for the point where it created a second direction. That is where the game was decided, and seeing it repeatedly is what trains the recognition.