Gomoku Online — Five in a Row
Gomoku is the Japanese “five in a row”: a giant tic-tac-toe where you must line up five stones. Face the computer, which hunts down and blocks threats, or play a friend on the same device.
Your turn — you play with the black stones
Tap an intersection to place a stone. Black starts; who starts alternates each game.
How to play Gomoku
The board has 15×15 intersections. Black starts and each player places one stone at a time on an empty intersection. Stones never move and are never removed.
The first player to make a row of five stones of their color wins, horizontally, vertically or diagonally (here, in freestyle style, six or more in a row also count). If the board fills up, it is a draw.
The key is threats: a “four” forces your opponent to block, and an “open three” (three in a row with both ends free) becomes an open four that cannot be stopped. Whoever creates two threats at once usually wins. Undo takes back your last move.
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between Gomoku, Renju and five in a row?
They are the same family. Here we play freestyle, the most popular style online. Standard Gomoku accepts exactly five (six in a row does not win), and Renju, the tournament version, forbids Black from making double threes, double fours and overlines, because the first player has an advantage.
Does the first player have an advantage?
Yes, a big one: it has been proven that in freestyle Gomoku, Black wins with perfect play. That is why tournaments use swap openings, such as swap and swap2, where one player sets up the first stones and the other chooses a color. Here, who starts alternates each game.
How does the computer play?
It evaluates each intersection looking for fives, fours and open threes, both for itself and for you, and decides between attacking and blocking. On the hard level it also looks for sequences of fours that force a win.