Connect Four has been solved by exhaustive computer analysis. The result is blunt: the first player wins with perfect play, but only by opening in the centre column. Opening in either column beside the centre leads to a draw. Opening in any of the four outer columns loses.
That makes the first move the least optional decision in the game โ and it makes the next three worth thinking about, because they decide which squares each side reaches once the stacks start climbing. This page walks through the opening on the board Connect Four actually uses, using the line counts measured from its own win-detection table.
How the opening is entered here
Before the strategy, the mechanic. Connect Four here does not drop a disc when you click a column โ you click the exact square the disc will occupy. On an empty board that means the bottom row. After that it is always the square directly above the highest disc in that column. Clicking anywhere else produces a can't go here message and no move is made.
In the opening this matters more than later, because an empty board offers seven legal squares and thirty-five illegal ones. Aim at the bottom row. The rules are set out in how to play Connect Four.
Move one: column 4, and nothing else
The board contains 69 winning lines. Column 4 carries 51 of them โ 74%. The columns beside it carry 39 each, the next pair 27, and the outer walls 15 apiece. Opening on a wall commits your first disc to a fifth of the board's winning potential while your opponent takes three quarters of it on their reply.
The bottom square of column 4 sits on 7 lines: four horizontal, one vertical and two diagonal. That is the most connected square in the bottom row, and it is also the square that keeps every centre line open for you and closed to nobody.
Move two: take the centre back
Playing second, the reply is the same square you wanted: column 4, now on row 5. There is a hidden bonus in doing so. Because discs stack, the second disc in the centre column lands on a 10-line square, while the first one landed on a 7-line square. The player who takes the centre second gets the better of the two bottom squares.
If the first player opened elsewhere, take column 4 immediately and you have inherited the advantage the solved result says belongs to whoever holds the centre.
This is the one moment in Connect Four where the second player is not reacting. After it, every move is a response to a board the opponent has partly shaped, and the initiative has to be earned back through threats rather than claimed outright.
The two squares that decide most games
Counting lines through every square individually shows where the real estate is. The two strongest squares on the board are rows 3 and 4 of column 4, each sitting on 13 winning lines โ more than four times the three lines a corner sits on.
Those squares are the third and fourth discs to enter the centre column. So the centre's value is not unlocked by the first disc placed there; it is unlocked mid-stack. A game in which both players keep feeding the centre alternates those squares between them:
| Disc in column 4 | Square | Lines through it |
|---|---|---|
| 1st | Row 6 (bottom) | 7 |
| 2nd | Row 5 | 10 |
| 3rd | Row 4 | 13 |
| 4th | Row 3 | 13 |
| 5th | Row 2 | 10 |
| 6th | Row 1 (top) | 7 |
Read the table and the standard beginner mistake becomes obvious: stacking the centre column mechanically hands your opponent every second strong square. Whoever plays the fifth and sixth discs there is spending moves on squares worth 10 and 7 while the opponent already banked a 13.
The useful conclusion is that centre control means reaching rows 3 and 4 of column 4, not owning the whole column. Once you have one of those two squares, spend your next moves widening threats in columns 3 and 5 instead of filling column 4 to the roof.
Moves three and four: build width, not height
With the centre contested, the strongest continuation is to occupy the bottom row of columns 3 and 5. Each of those columns carries 39 of the 69 lines, and a bottom-row disc there sits on 5 lines while opening diagonal possibilities that run through the centre squares you are fighting over.
Three discs spread across columns 3, 4 and 5 on the bottom two rows generate far more overlapping threats than three discs stacked in one column, because horizontal and diagonal lines both need width. A vertical stack threatens exactly one line โ the column itself โ until it interacts with something else.
Concretely, a reasonable shape to aim for in the first four of your moves: centre first, then the bottom of one adjacent column, then whichever of rows 3 or 4 in column 4 becomes available, then the bottom of the other adjacent column. That configuration keeps at least two diagonals and one row live simultaneously.
The test of whether an opening worked is not how many discs you placed in the centre but how many distinct lines you are now three-quarters of the way along. Pause after your fourth move in Connect Four and count them. Two or more and the opening did its job; one and you built height instead of width; none and you have been reacting to your opponent rather than building anything.
What you hand over every time you move
Every disc you place makes the square above it legal for your opponent. In the opening this is cheap, because the squares above the bottom row are only worth 4 to 10 lines. It becomes expensive fast.
Get into the habit early: before choosing a column, look at the square your disc will create above itself and ask what it completes for the other side. If it completes a line for them, the column is poisoned and should be left alone until they are forced to open it themselves.
This is also the mechanism behind every won game. Forcing your opponent into a position where every legal column hands you a line is the fork, and it is covered in Connect Four double threats.
Openings to avoid
The wall opening. Columns 1 and 7 carry 15 lines each. A disc there threatens almost nothing and cannot be part of most diagonals. It is the losing first move in the solved analysis.
Mirroring. Copying your opponent's column exactly means always landing on the square above theirs, which is the square they just made legal for you. You spend the whole game one square behind, and you concede every 13-line square to them.
Chasing a single row. Horizontal lines are the most visible of the 69 and the easiest to block, because blocking one takes a single disc in the gap. Diagonals โ 24 of the 69 โ are harder to see and harder to block, because a diagonal threat is often completed by a disc the opponent is forced to place for unrelated reasons.
Practising the opening
Since Connect Four here is two players on one screen, opening practice needs a partner or a willingness to play both sides. Note that the game has no reset button โ a fresh board means reloading the page โ and no draw detection, so a full board with no message is a draw.
Play the first four moves deliberately, then stop and count: how many lines do you have three-quarters of, and how many does your opponent have? If the answer is fewer than two apiece, the opening was too narrow.
The complete line-count map for every square, and what it implies for the middle game, is in the Connect Four winning strategy guide. If you would rather practise threat-counting alone, Tic Tac Toe is the same fork logic on a smaller grid, and the best board and card games has the rest of the shelf.