Complete guide: the goal, placing stones on the 15×15 board, how to be the first to get five in a row, controls on muta.pro and double-threat tactics for beginners.
Gomoku is «five in a row». The task is simple: be the first to build five of your stones in a row — horizontally, vertically or diagonally. The player who makes such a line wins immediately. At the same time you must watch your opponent: a single unblocked threat is enough for them to win first.
Play takes place on a grid of lines — on muta.pro this is a board 15×15 with marked reference points. One player moves with black stones, the other with white. The board is empty at the start, black moves first. Stones are placed on the intersections of the lines and stay there until the end of the game — nothing is captured or removed here.
On your turn, place one stone of your colour on any empty intersection. Then the turn passes to your opponent.
Players move strictly in turn, one stone at a time. On muta.pro you play Black, and the bot opponent replies with White.
Build a row of five stones in any of the four directions. The winning line is highlighted on the board.
Every move both develops your own line and blocks the opponent's. A stone at the end of an enemy row of four is mandatory.
The strength of the game lies in creating two open lines at once: the opponent can block only one, and you finish off the second.
The game ends as soon as someone gets five in a row. If the board fills up with no five, it's a draw.
Key situations on the board. Your stones are black, the opponent's are white. Green marks the winning line and the decisive intersections.
The winner is the one who is the first to build five stones in a row. On muta.pro the winning line is marked with a green stroke, and «BLACK 🏆» or «WHITE 🏆» appears on the panel. The «Wins ⚫» and «Wins ⚪» counters keep the score of the series of games, and the «Move N» indicator shows how many stones have already been placed. If the board fills up completely with no winner, a draw is recorded.
From the centre of the board it's easier to extend lines in every direction and hinder your opponent at the same time.
An open row of four from the opponent is checkmate: block it immediately, everything else can wait.
Create two threats at once — an open three and an open four — so the opponent can't block both.
Before placing a stone, check that you won't be handing your opponent an open line of their own.
In free-style gomoku, Black has an inborn advantage from moving first, but it only pays off with a precise opening. The first stone is almost always placed in the centre (tengen): from here lines stretch in all eight directions with the greatest reserve of cells. Next, it's important not to "stick" stones tightly together but to form a flexible shape that threatens several future threes at once.
The opening idea is one: build up potential without commitment. Each early stone should work on at least two lines, so the opponent cannot devalue all your plans with a single block. As soon as you manage to link three stones so that any of them extends into an open three with a follow-up, the initiative passes to you, and from then on you dictate the tempo.
The first stone on tengen. A shift toward the edge instantly gives up part of your lines: at the border there's nowhere to complete a five, and half your directions are dead from birth.
Place the second stone not adjacent but one cell away on a diagonal: the shape ●_● keeps the connection while threatening two different lines at once. A tight pair ●● is predictable and easily pinched off.
An early open three invites a block that hands the opponent tempo and a convenient anchor. Build up potential until you can open a three with a follow-up into a fork.
The one catching up cannot build their game on the other edge — you won't have time. Keep your stones near Black's, smother their development and wait for the first slip.
A flexible "jump" opening: the central stone links two diagonals, each of which can become a three.
A strong player beats a beginner not with a combination, but by seeing the board a move or two ahead. Every enemy stone must be judged with the question: "What will it turn into if I stay silent?" Learn to read not individual stones but potential lines — directions along which the opponent already has two or three stones with room to grow.
It helps to keep an internal priority list and run through it each move: first look for the opponent's four (it's always blocked), then an open three, and only then look at your own attack. This order guards against the most galling loss — when you got carried away with your line and failed to notice the opponent had already assembled an unstoppable shape.
Before your move, mentally draw the horizontal, vertical and both diagonals through the opponent's fresh stone. Dangerous is the direction where one or two of their own stones adjoin it and there are free cells.
A line lives as long as there's room to build up to five at both ends. A three at the border or one running into your stone is already half-dead — don't rush to react to it.
The opponent's most dangerous moves aren't the obvious threes but "empty" stones at the crossing of two future lines. It's from these that a fork grows a move later. Spot the crossings before a threat appears on them.
A broken three ○○_○: the empty cell in the middle (gold) is the only blocking point; the edge is useless here.
When the centre is filled, the game moves into a counting phase: few free cells remain, and nearly every move is either a threat or a forced block. Here the winner is the one who counts the forcing sequence more precisely and doesn't confuse a live line with a dead one. The main endgame trap is the edge of the 15×15 board: a line running into the border cannot grow to five.
Before building a line near the edge, count the cells to the border. A three that needs six cells in a row for a five, with only four to the edge, is an illusion of a threat.
Block so that the opponent's line develops toward the edge. There their attack runs into the wall by itself, while you keep the centre for your forks.
When starting a series of fours, make sure the opponent's last forced reply really completes a fork for you. A forcing sequence broken off midway just gifts the opponent tempo.
On the left is the border (the dark column). The three ●●● can only develop to the right: a single free cell gives no open four, and the line is half dead.
On muta.pro you play free-style gomoku: a 15×15 board, any line of five or more wins, and the "three-three" and "four-four" forks are allowed. It's worth knowing the related versions too — they shift the balance of Black's advantage and the depth of calculation.
The competitive version: Black is forbidden the "three-three" and "four-four" forks and a row of six. The restrictions dampen the first-move edge — without them Black, playing precisely, wins almost always.
Balancing opening protocols: one player sets out the first stones, the second chooses whether to play Black or White. This hands the starting advantage over to the opponent's choice, and it stops deciding the game.
The classic is 15×15, but 13×13 and an unlimited board also occur. The larger the field, the stronger Black: lines have more reserve, and forks hide more easily.
In the free version a row of six also wins, so it's enough to collect any five in a row. In renju an "overline" of six does not count as a win for Black — a nuance worth keeping in mind.
Free-style gomoku forgives mistakes and teaches you to see threats — an ideal start. Take up the renju rules later, once forks have become automatic for you.