How to Play Gomoku

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Gomoku

Gomoku is a deceptively simple game which holds great depth, if admittedly nowhere near Go (but what is?)

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Rules

(there exist regional variants, I here relate the rules used in international tournaments and in serious online games)

  1. Play is like tic-tac-toe except…
  2. Instead of needing exactly 3-in-a-row to win, you need exactly 5-in-a-row to win (6-plus-in-a-row is ignored)
  3. Instead of playing on a 3x3 board of spaces, you play on a 15x15 board of intersections
  4. A filled board is still a draw if noöne has won yet, but given the larger board players may agree to a draw rather than playing it out
  5. Instead of choosing one player to go first and taking turns, a modified pie rule is used (see below)

Pie Rules

Swap-2 is the pie rule officially used in Tournaments, and it is the most balanced option. Long Pro, which has been used historically, is given despite being less balanced as it may be a good option for younger players or players who might not have enough interest in the game (yet) to get through an explanation of Swap-2

Swap-2 (official, most interesting, and most balanced)

  1. Slicer places 3 stones (2 black, 1 white)
  2. Chooser may either
    a. Decide to play black (game starts, it’s white’s turn)
    b. Decide to play white (game starts, it’s white’s turn)
    c. Place 2 more stones (1 white, 1 black) for a total of 5 stones on the board, and Slicer must choose which color to play (then the game starts, it’s white’s turn)

Long Pro (simple; good for younger children or complete beginners)

  1. Black plays move 1 on tengen
  2. White plays move 2 anywhere
  3. Black plays move 3 anywhere except the center 7x7 square (ie, black must play on the 4th line or below)
  4. The game continues on as normal with no further placement restrictions (there is no swapping of colors in Long Pro)
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The Deceptively Deep Game Hiding on Your Go Board
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How about Gomoku Quest?

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I believe that is actually Renju despite the name :frowning:

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Scherm­afbeelding 2025-03-01 om 08.15.18
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Edward Lasker was instrumental in developing Go in the U.S., and together with Karl Davis Robinson and Lee Hartman founded the American Go Association.

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Oh you want to differentiate them?

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Yeah, because they are quite different not only in rules but also how they play

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I’ve long been wondering what board-size would be roughly-fair for

No opening protocol: ​ instead, if the board fills up with neither player
having gotten a winning 5-in-a-row, then the second player wins.

.
​
​
Also, I had not seen the ​ exactly 5 ​ aspect before, and am now wondering,
Is there a known example of zugzwang or proof that there’s no zugzwang?
.

(The ​ exactly 5 ​ part means having an extra stone
on the board can be harmful to that stone’s player.)

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Can you explain a bit more on the details?

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One has even rules for both plays. The other has fouls just for one player. Obviously they will play a bit different.

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I thought Gomoku is same with ‘Link Five’ game in old nokia phone

some people call the game ‘five in a row’

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Gomoku has bit more complex rules to avoid the advantage to start the game as just being “5 in a row”. I was never enough interested to learn those rules.

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(from Lk on the Gomoku Club Discord Server; all 1st person references to follow are in reference to him)

All ways to win without opening protocol are known and can be learned = for my POV there’s no such thing as “board-size roughly-fair for”

It’s either win or lose (using hocpath’s rules)
Anyway
32 moves is the longest possible win by RAPFI (and good hardware) if played correctly
So maybe something like 7x7 or more likely 8x8 would “complicate” the situation… But nowadays… It’s just countable.

zugzwang → hard question
We have 3 terms
Win
Not win
Lose

zugzwang is about losing cause of playing…
You can have a situation when your opponent has a VCT, you would have a VCF created by defending him but you can’t play it beause he forced you (by playing x°°°) into the “overhang” rule
So this situation might be a zugzwang.
But you could argue that the “excess” stone isn’t causing you loss, but just isn’t helping to win in a certain situation… Which is something every stone sometimes does.
Taking it this way you lost because of you not seeing forward enough / not adapting well to a given situation

Which leads to… What is a zugzwang?
Is it a situation when you know you will lose (cause the game has certain rules you have to follow) and you don’t want to face it?
If so, every loss has a zugzwang.
Is it a situation when having the possibility to “pass” would be better for you than playing?
If so, I am not sure there can be a zugzwang.
What you play can make some of your stones useless, but not “dangerous”.
The only way your opponent can force you to play “overhang” stone is by directly threatening you… And that’s not a situation when you would like not to play… The fact that you allowed him to threaten you is a skill issue.

Those are just my thoughts, maybe I am wrong.

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I think in chess it’s this one. Normally if you can make some kind of fortress that you can move back and forward and not be mated you can force a draw, but sometimes the only legal moves are all bad and losing, but in a different way than other losses.

Like a zugzwang is different to mate in 2. If you could pass in a mate in 2 puzzle it might not even save you, but in a zugswang position it’s important that you’re forced to make a move.

image

I think in king and pawn endgames you can have situations where whoever moves loses, so if you had the ability the pass (like a sort of komi) then it could swing a game outcome.

If you had an arbitrary number of passes then maybe this is a draw

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(Examples from What is Zugzwang in chess? - Chess Terms - Chess.com)

Maybe you might call this position Zugswang for Red in connect 4

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There’s a different feel to a game where you could win or draw if it wasn’t your turn to move than to a position which is lost no matter what.

One distinct difference with chess and connect 4 to Gomoku is the freedom of movement in gomoku.

I think if it was unrestricted placement, and no additional rules about over lines, not winning because you have more than 5 in a row, then you can’t really have a zugzwang because every move is non-negative in some sense.

It doesn’t harm you to have pieces that could potentially make a 5+ in a row or block the opponent.

I think this idea that a move can’t be bad is kind of the core of the argument that Hex has a first player win.

It mentions there that

Other examples of games to which the argument applies include the m,n,k-games such as gomoku.

So I think if there’s a zugzwang it comes down to the additional placement restriction rules, and whether you can be in a position where the only moves you have left are bad, and if you could pass it would be beneficial.

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Hello @Samraku I was wondering if you could edit this post to include some additional resources. There is a Gomoku discord that has been started up to help players learn and find matches (the official discord over at r/gomoku). Also, Gomokufive.com for playing gomoku online (both against a computer and other players). As this is the site we primarily use in the discord channel to find matches and play Gomoku.

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From some poking around, while it looks really nice, it seems to present the No-Opening-Rule Gomoku into Renju path, rather than the No-Opening-Rule into Swap-2 path which differentiates Gomoku from Renju? am I mistaken on this?

Also, could you link the Discord here? I didn’t see it on a cursory glance at the subreddit you mentioned. Unless you mean Gomoku Club, which I assume I already linked, but if not I should (EDIT: I checked, it’s indeed linked, assuming the invite still works)

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Yes, here is the discord link: Gomoku Discord

You are correct, this is one of the main differences between Renju and Gomoku. We are looking into creating an article highlighting all of the differences as well as adding the Swap2 rule to the game and an article explaining how to play with the rule.

It would be great help if you could add these two links to the resources above so we can help grow the Gomoku community!