Four wins
| Four wins | |
|---|---|
 Material and gameplay |
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| Game data | |
| author |
Howard Wexler , Ned Strongin |
| publishing company |
Milton Bradley , Hasbro, et al. a. |
| Publishing year | 1974 |
| Art | Strategy game |
| Teammates | 2 |
| Duration | 10 mins |
| Age | from age 6 |
Four wins (English: Connect Four or Captain's mistress ) is a two-person strategy game with the goal of bringing the first four of his own pieces in a line. The game developed by Howard Wexler with ideas from Ned Strongin was launched in 1973 by Strongin & Wexler Corp. Licensed to Milton Bradley (MB Games) and published in 1974.
regulate
The game is played on a vertical hollow game board into which the players take turns dropping their game pieces. The game board consists of seven columns (vertical) and six rows (horizontal). Each player has 21 pieces of the same color. If a player drops a token into a column, it occupies the lowest free space in the column. The winner is the player who manages to line up four or more of his pieces horizontally, vertically or diagonally first. The game ends in a draw if the board is completely filled without a player having formed a line of four.
Strategy and tactics
Beginners often overlook simple threats from the opponent to complete lines of four. This is why it is important to keep an eye on all vertical, horizontal and diagonal lines. Advanced players try to win by building two threats at the same time (fork; dilemma). As a rule of thumb , pieces in the middle of the board have more value than pieces on the edge of the board, since there are more opportunities for them to participate in lines of four (and thus also limit the opponent's options). Good players try to put three pieces in a line for a short time and at the same time prevent the opponent from placing in a certain column. Towards the end, the game often becomes a complex counting game; both players try to win by forcing the opponent to bet in a certain column. For the player to move, the rule is that an even number of pieces is always placed until it is his turn again.
The strategies of the first and second player differ significantly. All three lines of one color create a hole : a field which, if occupied by the corresponding player, leads to victory.
A hole is said to be even or odd depending on which row it is in (the bottom row is numbered “one”). In order for the first player to win, he must have built more odd holes than his opponent, the even holes are irrelevant. For the second player to win, he must have at least two more odd holes than his opponent, or the same number of odd holes and at least one even hole. These rules are simplified because if there are several holes in the same column it becomes more complicated. Holes that are directly above the opponent's holes are mostly useless.
Solution to the game
The four-in-a-row game is a game with perfect information . Victor Allis and James D. Allen solved it almost simultaneously and independently of each other (published by Allis for the first time in 1988, by Allen in 1990). Allis drew up a set of rules that he could use to reduce the computing time required. Allen kept a couple of Sun workstations busy doing four wins. Both came to the same conclusion: the first player can win the game against best defense if he starts in the middle column. If he starts in the column to the left or right of it, the game ends with a perfect game on both sides; if he throws his first stone into one of the four remaining columns, he even loses against a perfect opponent.
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Spider Line Four : the next stone can be placed on one of the spaces marked with an x.
On different game servers you can play Four in a Row on a board with 8 × 8 fields, since it is solved on the 7 × 6 board. A variant that is also often offered there is Linetris ( suitcase word from line four and Tetris ): if the bottom row is full and no player has formed a line of four and thus won, then the bottom row is emptied and the stones above fall one row down.
Often there is also spider line four on servers , here you can also place the stones on horizontal or downward-growing stacks, i.e. H. You can place a bet on a field if it is on the edge of the board or if there is a row of occupied fields that leads orthogonally to the edge of the board. Another variant also allows playing with more than two players or the possibility that the winner is whoever has formed the most chains of four after the field has been completely filled.
With a four-in-a-row Flip , the game wall can be rotated. This variant has not caught on and is no longer available in stores. The new edition of the game adds another optional mechanism. The stones in the bottom line can be popped out individually. In addition, 4 wins 4x4 is now available, which allows four players to play by adding a second wall. There are also two non-strategic variants in which skill counts: In “Tower” and “Snap the Chip” you try to use a catapult to get four of a kind in a row.
A three-dimensional variant of this game appeared in 1967 in the USA as Score Four and in Germany in 1974 as Sogo by Ravensburger . It is also known under the name Four Wins Professional , and in the GDR it was known as the room mill .
Similar games
- Tic-tac-toe
- Five in a Row (Gomoku)
- Qubic
- Just 4 fun
literature
- Victor Allis: A Knowlewdge-Based Approach of Connect-Four. The game is solved: White wins . Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, 1988 ( as PDF file; 316 KB )
Web links
- Connect Four in the game database BoardGameGeek (English)
- Expert Play in Connect-Four, complete strategy description by James D. Allen
- Follow A090224 in OEIS : Number of possible positions for n men on a standard 7 × 6 board of Connect-Four
- Collection of web links to programs, online servers and articles
- John Tromp's solutions for different board sizes
- 4-in-a-row robot (PDF; 3.2 MB)
swell
- ↑ Victor Allis Master's thesis with the solution strategy (PDF file; 322 kB) in: 1988 as Report IR-163 by the Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Also published in 1992 as Report CS 92-04 by the Faculty of General Sciences at the University of Limburg, Maastricht, The Netherlands.
- ↑ Archived copy ( memento of the original from October 23, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
