Tactics Puzzles: Find the Move That Forces the Win
Tactics is chess-style puzzle training for four-in-a-row. Each puzzle drops you into a real 9x8 middlegame where exactly one move forces a win. Play it, survive the strongest defense, and land the finishing blow - anything else counts as a miss and you retry the same position.
How the puzzles work
- Solver-verified. Every position is generated and checked by an exact game solver: the winning line is forced, and the advertised move count is exact.
- The defense is the strongest one. The opponent's replies are precomputed to maximize resistance - no soft defenses.
- Win in 2 means: your move, the best reply, then your winning move. A wrong first move never forces it - find the only one that does.
- Progress is saved in your browser; solved puzzles advance automatically to the next unsolved one.
20 free puzzles in the browser
The web version of Line4 9x8 ships a hand-picked set of 20 Win-in-2 puzzles - from clean 12-disc positions to dense 46-disc boards where the forcing idea hides in plain sight. Open the game and press Tactics to start solving.
500 puzzles in the Android app
The full training set lives in the free Android app: 500 solver-verified puzzles, including the deeper Win in 3 and Win in 4 series, with the same retry-until-you-find-it rules and automatic progression.
Why puzzle training works
Forced wins in four-in-a-row almost always come from double threats - two ways to complete a line where the opponent can block only one. Solving Win-in-2 positions trains your eye to spot those patterns before they appear in your own games. Start with the strategy basics, then test yourself against the Champion AI.