Introduction to Connect 4 Strategy

hi this is two swap today I'm going to present an introduction to connect four tactics so specifically I'll be going over four things that you should look out for while you're playing the game um those are threat analysis common torque wins parody and opening strategy and hopefully you can think about these four things while you're playing the game and start to pay more attention to them while you're playing and hopefully develop an intuition for them in order to help your game improve in the long run so I'm going to start off with coming to torque wins so let's just say a game starts out like this this is probably not not realistic but it serves demonstrative purpose so you can now see that there are two um two major threats that red has a major threat is a threat that has three pieces already filled in so this is a major threat leaving this piece open and there's also a major threat here leaving this piece open so um turns out to be the case in this scenario that red or that yellow can play whatever yellow wants to do um but the results is going to be the same and that red can just fill up this this column here and yellow is going to be forced to block this bottom one and Red's gonna then be uh be able to win the game like that so this is an example of uh what's called a vertically adjacent fret pair so these two threats are vertically adjacent to each other and red can win the game by by creating these two threats um but more generally speaking this is a way that you can sort of make a trap for your opponent so that's a sort of contrived example with uh like by creating this little seven shape at the beginning of the game but we can think of another example uh that's more realistic so let's say um we start with an opening called the six one so this is the sixth one here specifically the narrow six one since yellow played this spot um and we continue up on this row you might think it would be a good idea for yellow to play um here for example but this turns out to be uh very incorrect because red Canal play this um and so now there are two a major threat uh major threats for red that are in existence um these two specifically so regardless of which one yellow blocks if yellow tries to block this bottom row then Red's going to take this other one and get this diagonal win so that's another example of a really common trap that you'll see played in practice so um okay let's try one more you can think of this opening it's very similar this is called the five five and we'll say red plays here now in this scenario yellow turns out to only have a single move to not lose basically immediately if yellow plays here for example then Red's gonna play here and yellow has to fill in this bottom line and then play uh and then red gets to play this uh this winning move to make this four in a row so in practice what would have actually happened is yellow would have recognized that that was coming and then played here in order to block in order to block the threat so that's an idea of how to create common Network wins or threats while you're playing the game um so now let's talk about the second topic which is parody you can think of combinatoric threats as a way to make quick wins happen um basically just push your opponent into a wall and just sneak a win out right there whereas parody is basically a tactic that you can use long term in order to uh sort of make your make your position better in the long run so um we can imagine uh filling up the board like almost entirely such that you know there's only a single row left um I'm just gonna spam pieces this is not there's no real Rhyme or Reason to this but you can imagine now okay um Red's gonna be forced to play in the first row here yellow is going to be forced to play in the second row right it's gonna be forced to play in the third row and so on and so forth until you end up with red playing in the fifth row and yellow playing in this in the sixth row so Red's player one yellows player two so you uh it turns out to be the case that player two is always going to play the last piece in the board that's because there's a total even number of uh spots to be played and yellow is the player two right so yellow as player two is always going to be the person to get um the even row spaces in the in the final column assuming there is a final column so uh and and similarly Red's gonna be the one to uh get the the odd spots in the final column so you the reason that this is important is this if yellow is known to have a have the last spot on the last column if yellow were to have for example developed a uh a major threat on these three stones here such that yellow plays the the fourth Stone on the last column here then yellow would have won the game so if yellow can develop a position where there's a major threat leaving um an even an even row threat then that's Advent he just for yellow and similarly red wants to create threats that leave the open piece in the threat on an odd row so let's go back to the position that we were at just a moment ago and I'll show what this exactly means in practice I think it was here so we'll just say red goes here and now so yellow is going to be thinking about this position yellow is going to say okay uh if if red were to have this spot then that's going to be developing a sort of a third row threat like this um and that's really bad for me so I'm going to play a piece here because I don't want this this Minor Threat on the third row to be formed because once again red is player one so player one having a third row threat is advantageous two two player one so similarly Red's gonna look at the board and say okay yellow or player two has um the ability to make a Minor Threat on the fourth row here so Red's Gonna Fill In to prevent that from happening also now um yellow is going to do the same logic up here yellow doesn't want red to get a Minor Threat on the fifth row so yellow is going to stop that from happening um and now let's say Okay red plays here this is actually a very good move because now red has played the two uh even Road pieces on a on a diagonal threat meaning the other two are going to be the odd row pieces right this is the fifth row on the sorry the third row in the fifth row piece that are remaining on this diagonal as opposed to the sixth row and the fourth which are already filled in so if red can manage to fill in one of these two holes then the other one is going to be a given when the game is ending so we can imagine that let's say yellow does something like this and I don't know maybe red let's say red just like uses this thread up just to advance the board a little bit and prevent yellow from maybe like making a fourth rough right over here which is even and of course again to two yellows yellow's advantage um now we'll say red plays uh this spot here um this this is beneficial in so far as it makes a a major growth right here although it's although it's even so it's not quite as important but you'll see how it comes into play in a moment uh yellow can I don't know threaten like this and then maybe red will stop that from from working out but like this is something that might happen in practice but now um Here's the the uh the magic um yellows now yellow doesn't really have much left to do so we'll say yellow just does this um and now red can do this now yellow has to fill in this this hole here and red then gets this fifth row threat um like creating the major threat here that that leaves the the third row piece empty so what this means is that red is basically guaranteed the win um insofar as the whole board is going to fill up until red gets to fill this this piece in so regardless of what else happens it actually turns out Red's gonna win earlier over here but you can imagine even if even if that weren't to have happened then yellow can fill in this and red gets the the guaranteed win on the third row major threat that red created over on this side of the board so that's an example of how parity Works in practice so basically the takeaway here is player one who's playing red wants to um wants to create threats that leave Open Spaces in the threats on the odd rows so player one wants audreo threats and the even player player 2 wants even row threats that's the general idea of parity of course this isn't completely cut and dry um there are times when like even real threats are beneficial to the odd player and vice versa but um the general idea is is uh that you want to create threats that leave holes that leave the the the actual piece that you're threatening on the even or odd row up to whether you're the even the rod player okay so that's uh that's parody in a nutshell the next topic is openings um so it turns out that connectiv4 is actually a solved game meaning that computers have been able to completely search the entire space of all the games that you can play and determine which moves are optimal so you can think of if there's a game of two players with perfect understanding of the game what would they do right um it in that sense it turns out to be the case that uh player one has the advantage insofar as player one is guaranteed to win according assuming that player one makes no blunders so you can you can think of player one as being advantaged in that sense um and what that means actually is that if player one plays uh in this spot that's that's a correct move um and the game would continue and player one could still win however if player one does anything other than that then player one uh is going to lose the game assuming player 2 then plays optimally so there are correct moves um and thus there are correct openings and and also incorrect openings um and we know what they are so specifically this is this is a correct move for player one in fact it's the only correct move for player one at the beginning of the game uh if player one does either this or of course by symmetry this um that turns out to be a a tie game assuming optimal play from both players thereon and then if player one does anything other than that so either of these two Fringe pieces then um that's going to be a win for player 2 assuming optimal play so you can start to sort of learn the game in a way such that your your understanding of the opening sort of feeds forward in the game and then you get good enough to read the game uh and like such that you can you can read out what's going to happen um from the end of the game back and eventually you'll get good enough such that you can sort of rely on your understanding of openings to get you to a point where you can just read the rest of the game by your understanding of parity and just come into torques and that way uh you'll sort of be able to meet in the middle and then theoretically play a perfect game and never make a mistake um of course that's easier said than done um and as far as I know there are no experts that can always do that um but if if you play someone who plays a relatively simple opening then you might be able to have that happen so um okay what do I mean by a simple opening then I guess is the next question uh you can think of it like this um player one since player one is already quote unquote guaranteed the win uh player two wants to basically confuse player one as much as possible it's advantageous for yellow to play a confusing opening whereas for player one um player one wants to keep it as clean cut as possible Right player one just wants to uh sort of play something as simple as possible so what this ends up looking at like is uh something player one might want to happen is like this this turns out to be a very well studied opening um it also is a very good one for for player one that is to say yellow yellow um doesn't really get that much out of this um however it does turn out to be the case that if if player one plays here on player one player two plays here it's necessarily the only correct move that player one continues up this line so player one has to make these two moves in this position that's forced but um uh alternatively uh you can think of you know as I as I said um player two wants to confuse the game a bit uh so for example I prefer this opening to to playing uh like this because it's generally just harder to reason about it's not symmetrical um and there's a lot of rather unintuitive variations uh on it so yellow or player two wants to create unintuitive and difficult positions because that's most likely what's going to get read to Forfeit the advantage that red is given by default um so sort of contrapositively you know you have the uh the fact that okay red wants simple openings right red wants to play something as simple as possible yellow wants the game to be as complicated as possible so uh for that that reason you know yellow might play something that's not on the center row um of course that doesn't mean go and play ridiculous things like this that's that's not a good idea so this is a good opening this is a good balance between um being an alright move and being a confusing move so okay um the way that you you end up thinking about openings is is you you'll sort of know what the correct responses to Things Are so in this case it turns out to be the case that the Right Moves for red are are very unintuitive a lot of the time red will play this or or this those are both wrong they both yield tie games under under perfect play um what what the right move is turns out to be this um so this this is the quote unquote correct response to the to this threat and not many people know that um unless they've explicitly studied the opening um it turns out actually this is also uh technically a win but uh it's it's much harder to uh to play it out so this is rarely played in practice um yeah so this this opening here uh yellow can Force Red to get into a rather awkward position and then it just makes some very confusing openings like this for example so um that's a way that you can use the opening to your advantage and you'll know sort of what what you should be doing in the position that you're in or how to respond if your opponent makes a move that's not uh standard on the opening so for example like if red plays this then uh Yellow by knowing opening Theory would know that this is the only correct move to play um so similarly um not just memorizing the the correct moves in any position you can also sort of know just what tends to happen uh given in the opening so for example I went over this let's say we're playing yellow in this in this position and red plays here so as I mentioned this is a tie game this is not the correct move for red but um we'll say the game continues like like this at this point this is uh this is a a game in favor of yellow and it turns out yellow can necessarily Force Owen on this diagonal line now um of course that's not by any means obvious but Having learned about openings you'll you'll start to realize things like this so I suggest knowing the names of openings and watching for when they happen in your game so that you can recognize patterns um and specifically I guess I'll just play out the uh the way that you get this win um you can you can do something like this um and we'll say I don't know red does red does that and yellow does this at this point yellow can actually just repeat all of Red's moves and it's guaranteed to yield this a win on this line so yellow can just do exactly what red does right back right back at him um so red does this you know I'm not even thinking about the order here because I already know what's going to happen um and it turns out sure enough red has to play here and on this second row major threat which benefits player two player two then gets the win on this line so only by having played this opening a million times and knowing that I'm playing it when I'm playing it um was I able to you know develop the understanding that okay this line is something to watch out for when I'm playing this opening so that's an example of opening Theory so yeah I've sort of gone into threat analysis common networks parity and and opening Theory and um I hope that's helpful I suggest playing a whole lot of games really I think the best way that you can use this information is to just play a lot of games of Connect Four and um think about these things actively while you're playing them in order to hopefully develop a better intuition as to how to apply these these theories in your own games I hope you enjoyed this has been two swap um let me know if you want to see more Connect Four content see ya

Channel: 2swap

Views: 61,078

Keywords: Connect, Four, Connect 4, Connect Four, Theory, Game, Board, Board Game, Strategy

Id: iIF0Ha-1h6c

Length: 18min 21sec (1101 seconds)

Published: Sun Feb 26 2023