How to Beat the Gomoku AI: Tips for Every Difficulty

Our AI on trygomoku.com comes in four difficulty levels. Easy is a relaxed introduction to the game. Master will make you question your life choices. Here's how each level thinks, and exactly how to beat it.

Easy: The "I just learned the rules" level

Easy AI looks at the board for about half a second and makes a move. It's looking for one thing: can I win right now? If yes, it plays there. If no, it looks for one layer of threat (can my opponent win next turn?). Then it picks a random-ish reasonable move.

How to beat it: Easy doesn't plan ahead. It can't set up multi-move traps. So you can beat it by building a double threat — create a position where you have two ways to win on your next move, and Easy will only block one of them. It literally can't see the fork coming.

You should be able to beat Easy 90%+ of the time without much effort. If you're losing to Easy, focus on basic pattern recognition first.

Medium: The "I know some tactics" level

Medium looks two moves ahead. It can spot a simple double threat and block it. It knows what a live three looks like. It's roughly equivalent to a human who's been playing for a few weeks.

How to beat it: Medium is vulnerable to setups that take three moves to pay off. It sees the immediate threat but not the long game. Try this: place two stones that don't look connected yet, then build a third that suddenly creates two live lines at once. Medium often won't recognize the danger until it's too late.

Also, Medium has a weakness: it over-defends. If you create a plausible-looking threat that isn't actually dangerous, Medium will often waste a move blocking it while you build something real elsewhere.

Hard: The "I've studied this" level

Hard looks four moves ahead and understands pattern evaluation. It knows the difference between a live three and a dead three. It will punish you if you leave an open-four opportunity. This is roughly club-player level.

How to beat it: You need real strategy now. Hard doesn't fall for fake threats. You need to build genuine multi-threat positions. The key is the forcing move — a move that your opponent has to respond to. If you can chain forcing moves (I play here, you must block; now I play there, you must block again), you can steer the game toward a position where you have the advantage.

Also: Hard is still deterministic. It evaluates the same position the same way every time. If you lose, replay the game and try a different approach to the same position — you'll learn what Hard values in its evaluation.

Master: The "good luck" level

Master uses iterative deepening (looking further ahead when the position demands it) and understands advanced concepts like forcing sequences and threat detection. It's not a grandmaster, but it will beat most casual players consistently.

How to beat it: Honestly? You probably can't yet, and that's fine. Master is there as a long-term goal. If you really want to try, focus on playing unpredictably. Master has been tuned on standard patterns and can handle textbook openings well. Weird, non-standard openings might throw it off — though fair warning, Master is also decent at handling surprises.

The real value of Master isn't "beating" it — it's using it as a practice partner that punishes your mistakes. Lose to Master, then analyze why. That's how you improve.

A note on the learning curve

Don't jump from Easy to Master and get discouraged. The intended progression is: beat Easy consistently → move to Medium → beat Medium consistently → move to Hard. Each step takes a few days of casual play.

And remember: the AI doesn't get tired, doesn't get distracted, and doesn't make "careless" mistakes. That's what makes it useful for practice. A human opponent might miss your double threat; the AI (usually) won't. If you can beat the AI, you can beat most humans.