Board Game Arena

I recently learned that Connect Four is a solved game, meaning that the player who goes first (Red) can force a win if they play perfectly.

That made me wonder: what actually happens if neither player makes a mistake?

If Red has a guaranteed winning strategy and both players know it, doesn't that mean Red will always win? And if that's the case, doesn't the game become less about strategy and more about who gets to play first?

Gillodibilo wrote: ↑07 August 2026, 16:03 I recently learned that Connect Four is a solved game, meaning that the player who goes first (Red) can force a win if they play perfectly.

That made me wonder: what actually happens if neither player makes a mistake?

If Red has a guaranteed winning strategy and both players know it, doesn't that mean Red will always win? And if that's the case, doesn't the game become less about strategy and more about who gets to play first?

You can say that about just about any game, if both players play perfectly. If a specific player wins, it's about who gets that role. If it's a tie, then the game is always drawn. In games with luck, it's about who got luckiest. If games with unknown information, it's who guessed correctly, such as a rock paper scissors fashion.

That said, the "if both players play perfectly" is doing a lot of heavy lifting here. A game like tic tac toe is trivial enough. In Connect 4, at least for the base game, while it's been solved by computers, it doesn't guarantee a human's success. As you learn more about the game, you can play perfectly against easier positions, but with more nuanced defenses it gets harder and harder to find the win. As it happens, it can often be easier to steal the win going second than to find the guaranteed victory going first, for reasons that actually tie into why going first is stronger to begin with. Even strong players still lose. That's one of the reasons Connect 4 ratings have things like 700s. If players could regularly play perfectly no one could stand out enough to climb up there. I know I still make game changing mistakes, some I get away with because my opponent overlooked it just like I did, and others cost me.