Best Gomoku Openings: A Practical Top 10

There is no single "best" first move in casual Gomoku in the way there is in a solved opening book, but there is a small set of opening ideas that appear in almost every strong game, and a larger set that players reach for early and regret later. This article ranks the ten that actually matter for a real match, explains why each one works or fails, and closes with a short method for picking one before the first stone goes down.

What "Best" Means Before the First Stone

A good opening in casual play does three jobs at once. It preserves enough empty space that your future lines can point in more than one direction. It does not hand your opponent a clean shape they can extend without complication. And it gives you something to say about move two and move three before you actually play them, so the opening is not a single move but a short plan.

The center square is the only move that genuinely satisfies all three jobs by default, which is why it is the default answer to "where do I start." But "start in the center" is not a plan by itself, and the rest of this article is about what to do in the five moves after it, because that is where the actual difference between players shows up.

The Ten Ideas, Ranked by How Often They Earn Their Keep

1. Take the center first

This is not an option to weigh against the others; it is the starting point the rest of the list builds on. A center stone has the maximum number of open directions, and it is the move an engine or a strong human would reach for from an empty board. There is no meaningful debate about whether to take it if it is available. The only reason to skip the exact center is if the board is not actually empty, in which case the other ideas below take over the conversation.

2. Answer with a close, off-center stone

If you are second and the opponent opens in the center, the standard reply is one of the four diagonally adjacent squares, not a far-flung stone in a different part of the board. A close reply keeps the two stones pointing at a shared cluster of empty intersections, which is where the early threats will form. Playing the reply far away is the single most common opening error by second players, because it looks like it is "building" somewhere while actually surrendering the center of the board to the first player.

3. Build two stones on the same line, then a third off it

Once you have two stones, the natural instinct is to continue the same line toward five. The better habit, in the second and third moves, is to place the third stone on a different line through one of the first two, so that a future move can extend in two directions at once. This is the earliest version of the double-threat idea that wins most Gomoku games, and it is far cheaper to build now, on move three, than on move twelve.

4. Block on the diagonal, not on the short side

When the opponent has two stones in a row, the block that matters most is usually on the longer, more open side of that pair, and diagonals are the lines players forget to check because they are harder to see on the board than rows and columns. A block placed on the side where the line is already cramped looks like it is doing a job and usually is not. This is a specific, high-leverage habit and it is the one that most often separates a player who "sees" threats from one who keeps catching a diagonal open three too late.

5. Avoid building your own blocked three early

A three with one end sealed by a stone or the board edge is worth less than it looks, because the opponent only has to watch one side of it. Strong openings keep threes open on both ends wherever the board allows. If you catch yourself placing a third stone that completes a one-ended shape, stop and check whether one square further along the same line would keep the shape open instead. This one adjustment quietly upgrades a large share of casual games without any tactical knowledge beyond noticing which ends of a line are already filled.

6. Reserve one square as a future open four

An open four, which wins immediately because it has two open ends and the opponent can only block one, is the most valuable pattern in the game, and the best time to build toward it is early, when you still have a lot of empty board. The opening moves in this article are, in effect, aimed at leaving at least one clean pair of adjacent empty squares somewhere on the board so that a future open three can convert into an open four. This is why the "close, off-center" reply and the "third stone off the line" ideas both work: they keep exactly that kind of empty structure alive.

7. Do not stack three stones in one line as your opening

Building a straight three-stone row early is seductive because it looks like progress toward five, but it is the easiest opening to read, and therefore the easiest to counter. The opponent can simply watch that one line and never worry about your other directions. Three stones in one line is a plan for a single direction. A more resilient early structure is three stones that already belong to two different lines at the same time, which is the difference between a threat that can be blocked in one move and one that cannot.

8. Use the edge only after the center is decided

Edge and corner play has a legitimate role in the midgame, once the center is occupied and lines are starting to fill in. As an opening, it is almost always the weaker choice, because the board edge permanently limits how far any line through that stone can grow. The useful version of this idea is not "play on the edge early" but "keep one or two squares on the edge deliberately empty so that a future open three can reach there." Deliberately unused edge space is useful; prematurely built edge structure is not.

9. Second-move replies define the opening more than the first move does

Most of what a "best opening" actually is, in casual play, gets decided on move two, not move one, because move one is almost always the center and move two is where the two players first diverge. Two players can both open sensibly and still end up in completely different games by move three, and that is where one opening has started to feel cramped and the other still has room. If you only remember one sentence from this list, let it be that the opening is really the first three moves, not the first one.

10. Match the opening to the board size you agreed on

A 9×9 game and a 15×15 game call for different opening tempos, even though the center stone is still the right first move in both. On 9×9 the board fills fast, so early, compact, two-line structures matter more than long open lines you plan to develop slowly. On 15×15 you have room to be slower and more open. If you copy an opening idea from one board size to the other without noticing the difference, it will look correct and still lose, which is confusing and worth a word of warning here.

Choosing Your Opening Before the Game Starts

You do not need to memorize a long list of named positions. You need a short, repeatable decision that takes five seconds before the first move, and a short one again before move two:

1. If the board is empty, take the center. No deliberation needed.
2. If you are second and the center is taken, place your reply on a diagonally adjacent square. Check that the line through both stones has at least three empty squares on each side before you commit.
3. On move three, place a stone on a different line through one of the first two stones, not a continuation of the same line. This is where the double-threat structure starts.
4. Before any of these moves, say out loud which of your two biggest threats the opponent can block, and which one they cannot. If you cannot name a threat they cannot block, your opening is not actually an opening yet, just two or three stones.

What Makes These Work, Without the Jargon

Everything above is a version of one idea: keep the number of open directions high, and keep at least one structure the opponent cannot fully block. The ten items are not ten separate tricks. They are ten different places the same idea shows up, from the very first center stone to the decision to leave one edge square empty. Once you see them as one idea, you stop needing the list. The list is for the early stage of learning, when the habit of checking both of your own open directions and one of the opponent's is not automatic yet.

If you want the pattern names used above put next to their formal definitions, the Gomoku glossary covers open three, open four, double three, and VCF with examples, so the casual language in this article and the formal vocabulary used in the strategy guides line up.

Frequently Asked Questions

Reviewed 2026-09-16. For the formal Renju opening procedure and its named patterns, see the Renju opening guide. For the pattern vocabulary used throughout, see the glossary.