Four in a Row

Home → Curriculum Hub → Interactive Maths Games → Four in a Row

Two players take turns dropping a disc into one of seven columns — discs fall to the lowest available space. Be the first to connect four in a row horizontally, vertically or diagonally to win. Click a column number at the top to drop, or click directly on any hole in that column.

Four in a Row was first published by Milton Bradley in 1974 under the name Connect Four. In 1988, Victor Allis proved it is a solved game — the first player can always guarantee a win with perfect play, and the optimal opening move is the centre column. The total number of possible game positions is approximately 4.5 trillion, making it a natural classroom example for discussing game trees, combinatorics and computational complexity at KS4. The game also connects to Ramsey theory: the search for forced patterns in large, seemingly chaotic structures.