Tap a square to place your stone
| Click or tap an intersection | Place your stone there. |
| New game | Clear the board. |
| Mode | Play the computer or a friend on the same device. |
Gomoku, also called Five in a Row or Gobang, is played on the intersections of a grid. Players take turns placing stones, and the first to get five of their own in an unbroken line, in any direction, wins. It is Tic Tac Toe grown up: the same idea of making a line, but on a board large enough for real depth.
What makes it a genuine strategy game rather than a bigger noughts and crosses is the double threat. Because five in a row is far away, most of the game is spent building shapes that threaten to complete in two places at once. Your opponent can block one, and you win with the other. Spotting and preventing these forks is the whole contest.
An open row of three, one with empty space on both ends, is the key threat. If your opponent ignores it, it becomes an open four, which cannot be stopped because it threatens to complete at either end. Learn to make open threes and to block your opponent's the moment they appear.
The winning weapon is the double threat: one stone that creates two separate ways to make five. Look for placements that extend two lines at once. Your opponent gets only one move to respond, so if you have made two threats, one of them survives.
Do not play passively by only blocking. If you spend every move stopping your opponent, you never build your own threats, and eventually they make a fork you cannot answer. The strongest defence is a counter-threat that forces them to respond to you instead.
Control the centre early. Lines radiate in all directions from central points, so a stone in the middle contributes to far more potential fives than one near an edge. Pushing play toward the sides shrinks your own options.
The board is much larger and you need five in a row, which creates room for genuine strategy and multi-way threats that the tiny three-by-three grid cannot support.
Five in a row wins. In this version longer lines also count, but five is the target you are building toward.
Yes, moving first is a real edge in Gomoku, which is why competitive rules add restrictions. For casual play, alternate who starts.
Yes, two-player mode shares one device between you.
Completely free, with no trial and no unlock. Gomoku loads with the page and plays immediately, without an install step or a video ad first.