Is it Possible to Always Win at Connect 4?

You can easily find and play an unbeatable AI in connect 4, so it is definitely solved.

Do you have a strategy for 7 x 5 (rows)?

Have you heard of Ultimate Tic-Tac-Toe? It's a version of Tic-Tac-Toe where each space is its own Tic-Tac-Toe board. You claim the space as yours by winning the mini-board, with draws not counting for either player. The big twist is that you can only play in the mini-board that corresponds to the space the other player played in last. So if the 1st player started in the middle space of the middle board, the 2nd player would then have to play in the middle board somewhere, let's say they play in the middle-top space in that board, the 1st player would then have to play in the middle-top board.
This actually creates a dynamic quite similar to connect 4, where every move you make influences your opponents options. And, of course, it still has the 3 conditions for Zermelo's theorem, so it's solvable, but I don't know if it's been solved yet. Would love to see a video on it.

He’s a Time Lord right? Like… I’m pretty sure I just watched a Time Lord explain the math behind Connect 4z

I have so many questions. Why is he doing all this in his backyard? Why does he have so many clocks? Why do the squirrels accept him as their own? What is that yellow stain on his white board? What is with the upside down circular stop sign? So many questions and not enough answers.

I love how the set just randomly falls apart during the video; it perfectly reflects my brain falling apart as I try to wrap my mind around the theory of Connect Four.

How about "Hive", "Santorini", or "Onitama"?

Your genius, get a smarter microphone.

I had a computer science project once where we had to make a connect 4 ai and our professor linked us his thesis paper on computational and mathematical analysis of connect 4 and how to win using those ideas

That squirrel is a paid actor

A Chess episode would be awesome! If you want to continue the theme of Zermelo's theorem. As far as we know, either player can force a draw, although chess isn't totally solved. Only a handful of openings like the Berlin are solved, although it's a hot topic to consider any opening to be solved, since hypothetically, Black can simply respond to White in an uncalculated way that doesnt follow lines that draw. Chess IS solved for any legal position consisting of 7 pieces or less though. This collection of lines is called the "Endgame Tablebase," and hopefully will be expanded to 8 pieces sometime soon.
Content creators like Levy Rozman (GothamChess) and Eric Roseman are wonderful resources, if you need to be pointed somewhere. Would be awesome to get the community involved too somehow! Mabye something a la 'Garry Kasparov VS The World' or in depth analysis on how chess bots calculate lines.

I'm glad you made a video about this, i was actually wondering about this subject for a long time

I dont think the squirrels understood your lecture

Bro did a whole research on connect 4💀💀

Now I just really wanna know what "Azungo" is

Interested in seeing chess hobestly

Watch at 1.25 speed 😮

The answer is yes a human can!

Could you do a video on the strategy behind casting the spell Gush in a magic the gathering game?

Hi, I am a 4-play player and kind of disappointed at this video.
Its not super hard to memorize how to win connect-4; you can ALWAYS win as the first connect-4 player, that is why there are no tournaments of it. No it would not take years, and once you figure it out you pretty much never forget. Although its not hard to memorize how to do it through practice, it IS hard to explain it, but basically if you are going first you need to create win conditions in odd rows, 1(rare),3,5; second player win condition is even rows 2,4,6. If the second player had a winning play on a row 4, and first player does not have an opportunity on row 3 of that same column, or any win opportunity on another column then the second player would win, for example. When you are playing against a good player, its never a random 4 horizontal connect or much less vertical, and the only way the game ends before the last 5 turns of the board is if someone fumbles and gets trapped.

If you are going first, you can always win as stated by this, but the second player, if he is good, can AT LEAST force a tie vs 99,99% of the player base. We in the community have delved into different ways second player should play but basically you only ever win against a significantly worse player than yourself.

Also I was expecting some kind of math proof for what I already knew which is pre-determined 1st player wins and is why I stopped playing 4-play in the first place, however there was no proof in this video, only a squirrel guy trying to sound like V-Sauce. I agree with what most of the video said, but the end part, saying that it would take a human years to memorize a winning strategy, if EVEN possible, is a complete lie, and shows lack of research!

I would link the platform for 4-play but sadly it was closed down for some years (like 10 years now), one of the reasons why I stopped playing. If anyone knows a cool website to play some 4-play ranked let me know, I'd love to take a look at the ladder and at the top players win %s (if they are fighting players of the same ELO it should be almost exactly 50% which is the amount of times they get to go 1st)

Audio is more important than video for viewers please use a better microphone

Greetings! I’ve never seen you before, But this was an intriguing and informative video. I generally prefer it when these sorts of videos go a little more into the math to show WHY things are, Rather than just how things are, But I understand not doing that.

With that said, However, I do want to hear about this “Azundo”...

Jhon Tromp, brother of Donald Tromp

With this epic music, strange scene and passion this man can talk about any theme and I will listen to it.

I definitely want to see zumdo

Wtf are you talking about, years to memorize winning strategy?? I learned how to always win as 1st in a week or less in this game when I was like 8yo

My college roommate and I played a lot (like a lot) of Connect 4, and we developed a 16 move opening pattern that we would always play. Later, we looked up this up and found out that we were one move off from a perfect opening. Love this video

Long time viewer. Why does this video have 95k views and under 20 likes? Keep up the good work 👍

I feel like I've stumbled upon some mad scientists shack in the woods and he won't let me leave until he's shared all his research.

Please explore chess. And the Looping rule in it you talk about is 3 fold repetition, if the board state is exactly the same 3 times it's a draw. Or 50 move repetition where if no piece has been taken and no pawn has moved in the last 50 moves, it's also a draw.

The chaoctic nature of this man, his scenarios and his videos gives me chills I hate him and I love him at the aame time, time, time.

Loved the vid man keep it up

I’ve always wondered the way to always win any battle legitimately. Mastered TicTacToe, the Art of War, Drug market, Monopoly and now in theoretical terms four-in-a-row

Now, I shall hone myself trying to defeat Chess

Zermelo's theorem is stupid. We all know that any non-random game is solvable. We just want to know the answer

It saddens me to have watched this and they didn't even mention Pente even once.

what happened to jack harlow

I love the 90's style cinematography.

I was interested in the topic, but I could not get past the setup. Things on fire, a squirrel, things on the dirt, someone throwing stuff. I could not get on board.

Algorithm blessed me with this, and while I am so in for the vibe, the topic, the presentation, most stuff, it's incredibly disappointing to present the result of complex and interesting calculations/permutations without going in-depth on them.
Like if the math/mind boggling simulation was a magic trick, this isn't showing the trick and explaining how it's done, this is showing the before and after photos of a magic trick, really disappointing.
There was some demonstration ofc, and it doesn't have to be a numberphile video. It's just the perfect middle ground would be at least one or two steps away from surface level to comprehensive imo.

-_- What a channel of madness?

This man is just a young Doc Brown.
I'm sold this is who invents the time machine

isn't that dream?

Connect four is a young man's game

Someone needs to introduce this man to Command strips😭😭

God damn it. You’ve given me another thing to put on my bucket list that I’ll never do.