Gomoku is simple to learn and deep to master. This hub organizes our complete strategy library into a clear path: start with the basics, learn to force wins with VCF and VCT, train deep calculation, and study the 26 professional openings. Pick the guide that matches your level - or work through all four in order. Every guide is free, ad-light, and built to be read once and applied immediately at the board.
Just learned the rules? Start here. Covers the center principle, the basic shapes (twos, threes, fours), how to read the board, and the attack/defend decision tree that prevents the most common beginner mistakes.
You know the rules but keep losing to casual players who think three moves ahead. This guide closes the gap: VCF (forced wins with fours), VCT (forced wins with threes), the attack/defend decision tree, and the five shapes that decide games.
For players who beat the AI on Hard and want tournament-level play. Learn to construct kills instead of finding them, read 7 moves deep, build simultaneous threats and decoys, convert advantages into wins, and hold together under time pressure.
The opening decides the shape of the entire game. This reference walks through the 26 professional gomoku openings - direct and indirect - with diagrams, the middlegames they create, and how to choose an opening that fits your style and punishes your opponent's.
Not sure where you are? Use this quick self-assessment. Be honest - the guide below your true level won't help, and the guide above it will frustrate you.
The natural progression is Beginner → Intermediate → Advanced, with Openings as a reference you revisit throughout. Don't skip - each guide assumes the one before it.
Four ideas run through the entire strategy library. Whatever guide you're reading, these are the threads to hold onto:
A forcing move (a four, or an open three) demands an immediate response and buys you tempo. Advanced play is the art of chaining forcing moves so the opponent never gets a free turn. See VCF and VCT in the glossary.
Most players defend too much. If you have a forcing move that leads to a win, attack - even if your opponent has a threat. Your four beats their open three, because yours wins now.
A stone only matters if it supports or extends other stones. Ten disconnected stones lose to four connected ones. Quality over quantity, always.
Calculating one branch deeply loses to the branch you didn't read. After your move, name the opponent's best defense and your reply to it. If you can't, you haven't calculated - you've hoped.
Start in the center, learn to recognize the basic shapes (open twos, open threes, fours), and run a 5-step scan before every move: can I win now, can they win next, can I make a double threat, can I extend a line, where's the best empty space. The full breakdown is in the beginner guide.
Most players reach a solid intermediate level (comfortable with VCF and the attack/defend tree) within a few weeks of focused play. Reaching an advanced, tournament-capable level takes months of deliberate practice - solving forced-win puzzles, reviewing games, and drilling calculation. The guides here are sequenced to take you through that progression.
Learn standard gomoku first - the tactics (fours, threes, VCF, forks) transfer directly. Once those are automatic, Renju adds forbidden moves for Black and makes the four-three the primary winning shape. See our gomoku vs renju comparison for the full rule differences and a learning path.
Right here - our play page has a free AI with adjustable difficulty (Easy, Medium, Hard). The best way to use it: pick one concept from a guide and focus on applying it for ten games, then review your losses to find the move where the game turned.
Pick a guide above, then test what you learn against the AI - or jump straight into a game.