gomoku
Gomoku, also called Five in a Row, is an abstract strategy board game. It is traditionally played with Go pieces on a Go board.
Players alternate turns placing a stone of their color on an empty intersection. Black plays first. The winner is the first player to form an unbroken chain of five stones horizontally, vertically, or diagonally.
Placing so that a line of more than five stones of the same color is created does not result in a win. These are called overlines.
However, in Caro, a variant also called Gomoku+, the winner must have an overline, or an unbroken row of five stones that is not blocked at either end.
LB_NUMBER_OF_PLAYERS: 2
Game duration: 4 mn
Complexity: 1 / 5
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Play gomoku and 959 other games online.
No download, directly from your web browser.
With your friends and thousands of players from the whole world.
Free.
Rules summary
Goal
Create an unbroken row of exactly five stones of your color horizontally, vertically, or diagonally.
Overlines (rows of 6 stones or more) do not count.
Variant
In Gomoku+ (also named Caro) in order to win your row of five stones must be free at both ends.
This balances the game differently and gives more defensive power to the white player.
Openings
Black always play first.
With the 'standard' (free) opening, black has got a distinct advantage over white who is directly put 'under attack'.
The 'tournament' opening aims to even the odds between the black and white players:
- black lays the first stone at the center of the board
- white lays the second stone in one of the spaces adjoining to the center of the board (horizontally, vertically or diagonally)
- black lays the third stone at least three spaces away from the center of the board.
