Play Gomoku Online for Free

How to play

Black moves first, then the two sides take turns, one stone on any empty point of the 15×15 board. Five or more in a straight row wins, diagonals included, and the game draws a line through them. A full board with no five is a draw.

Click a point to place a stone. On a phone, a tap aims: dashed lines cross at the point and a faint stone sits on it. Tap it again, or press Place. The last stone played has a dot on it.

Against the computer you switch colors every game. Undo takes back your stone and the computer’s answer, or one stone in Two players, but not once the game is over. A game you have started comes back when you pick that opponent again.

Online, whoever made the room plays Black in the first game, and Play again gives the first move to the other player. There is no undo online.

Controls

Action	Touch	Mouse	Keyboard
Place a stone	Tap a point (on a phone, tap again or press Place)	Click a point	Arrow keys or W, A, S, D to the point, then Enter or Space
Move the aim	On a phone, slide your finger or use the arrow buttons	The arrow buttons, when the window is small	Arrow keys or W, A, S, D
Undo	Undo	Undo	Z
Choose an opponent	On the start or result screen	On the start or result screen	Tab to the opponents, then the arrow keys
Pause or resume	Pause button	Pause button	Esc

A screen reader names each point by its row, column and stone, and announces the computer’s move the same way.

Tips and strategy

Against Easy, make an open three

An open three is three in a line with both ends empty. One more stone makes it an open four, and Easy can block only one end. Easy blocks a five but almost never stops an open three. Check its reply first, though: it often answers with a four of its own, and you must block that.

Against Medium, make two threats with one stone

Medium blocks open threes, so one stone has to make two threats. The marked point in the middle is row 8, column 8. Say you are Black, with stones on row 8 at columns 6, 7 and 8 (White sits at column 5) and on column 9 at rows 6 and 7. Play row 8, column 9: a four across and an open three up column 9. Medium has to block the four at column 10, and row 9, column 9 then makes an open four.

Against Hard, play for two fours as Black

Hard sees every chain of fours, but it plans only 3 moves ahead against threats built from threes. The games it lost, it lost to one stone that made two fours at once. Try it when you play Black, the side that moves first.

About Gomoku

Gomoku is short for the Japanese gomokunarabe: go is five, moku counts the stones and narabe means to line up. Japanese records trace the game to the mid-1700s, played with the stones and board of Go. In China it is called wuziqi.