A Thanksgiving Gomoku Tournament That Fits Between Dinner and Pie

4:40 clears the plates, 6:00 brings the pie

Thanksgiving dinner breaks up at 4:40. The pie comes out of the oven at 6:00. Between them sit eighty minutes, six people and one tablet, and the tablet holds exactly one game at a time. A 15×15 game between two casual players runs 40 to 45 stones, and at ten or twelve seconds a stone that is eight or nine minutes plus the argument at the end. Five games is the whole bracket. That number decides everything below.

Eight players means seven games, roughly seventy minutes with a minute between rounds. That fits. Nine players means eight games, and you are still playing when the pie goes cold. Trim one guest, or put the play-in round on a phone in the kitchen.

Board size works harder than a clock

A 9×9 game between two people who know the rules ends in 20 to 24 stones. Three minutes. On 15×15 it takes 40 to 45. On 19×19 you need 60 or 70 before anyone has to think hard, which is twelve minutes of tapping.

So the early rounds go on 9×9 and the final goes on 15×15. Save 19×19 for the two relatives who actually play online and give them the rest of the evening. A 19×19 game squeezed into a ten-minute slot ends on a stone nobody meant to place.

The settings, round by round

Round	Board	Clock	Handicap
Play-in (only at 9+ players)	9×9	5 min	2 rim stones from the adult
Round 1	9×9	6 min	1 rim stone, 2 if the adult plays online
Semifinal	15×15	10 min	2 rim stones, 3 for a wide gap
Final	15×15	15 min	none, or 1 if a finalist is under ten

Write it on the back of an envelope before the doorbell rings. Only the handicap column gets argued about, so settle it before dinner rather than during the semifinal.

Pair the bracket before you draw it

Seed the two strongest into opposite halves, or the final becomes a semifinal and the last twenty minutes are a dead rubber. Do the same with the two youngest. A first round of ten-year-old against six-year-old is over in ninety seconds and ends with one of them done for the night.

Six people is the awkward size: three first-round games leaves three winners and no clean semifinal. Add one play-in game between the two weakest, and the bracket becomes four. Seven players also needs one play-in. Eight needs none.

You cannot spot stones on this board

Giving the weaker player three stones is the standard advice and it does not work here. The board enforces turn order: black, white, black, and there is no pass button. A nine-year-old cannot place three black stones in a row, because after the first one it is White's turn.

So the stronger player pays in stones thrown away. Before your first real move, tap a stone on the outer line: row 1, row 9, column a or column i. That stone connects to nothing and burns a turn. Two of those on 9×9 is a real handicap. Three usually decides the game, which is why the table caps it at two.

One clause, because someone will test it: a rim stone may not touch another of your own stones. Two side by side on row 1 make a two, and a two on the edge is not wasted. Leave one empty point between them and the handicap stays honest.

The younger player always takes black, since the first stone is worth something by itself. If a seven-year-old is at the table, the kids' version of the rules is the one to read out loud.

Turn renju off

Renju is the version where black loses for a double three, a double four, or a line of six. The board flags it with a small message that fades in three seconds. Three seconds is nothing at a table where six people are talking.

A ten-year-old playing black under renju will lose a game they thought they had won, and lose it to a rule rather than to a move. Then the bracket has a crying child in it and the tournament is over for everyone.

Freestyle has no fouls and six in a row counts as a win, which is the version grandmothers know. Set Freestyle before Round 1. A page reload puts everything back to 15 lines, freestyle, vs Computer, so check again after any refresh. The wider game-night list makes the same argument about rules that fit on a napkin.

One person taps, nobody presses Hint

Switch to vs Friend. There is no AI in that mode, both colors belong to a human, and the difficulty buttons grey out, which kills the "the computer cheated" complaint before it starts.

Two players sit on the long sides with the tablet between them. A third person taps for both and does not play that round. It sounds fussy, and it deletes the entire category of "you moved my stone".

Hint marks the highest-rated point for the side to move and holds it for three seconds. That is a spectator pointing at the board mid-game, so nobody presses it. Undo takes back one stone, the one just played, so declare that dead too, or the last minute of every close game turns into a negotiation.

The move list goes on paper, two characters a stone: H8-I8-H9. The scorekeeper is usually the first person eliminated, and by the final you have a record of every game, which settles a "that was five" argument two days later.

Five sentences before Round 1

1. Five in a row wins, and six also counts.
2. Black starts, the younger player is black.
3. Two rim stones on 9×9, three on 15×15.
4. No undo, no hint, touching the board is a move.
5. If the clock runs out the game is void and you replay on 9×9 in three minutes.

That last one matters. A half-finished 15×15 position cannot be adjudicated: no material to count, no territory, no score. Void and replay is crude, and nobody argues with it.

The cousin who will not play

Two options, both better than talking them into it. Hand them the pencil: bracket, clock, move list. A person holding the pencil is never outside the game.

Or make the semifinal 2v2, two per side, partners alternating stones on one screen. Doubles gomoku is slower and louder, and it closes a skill gap for free because the weaker player's partner can cover a blunder. It also doubles the number of people who care about the result.

Set it up tonight

Open the board on the biggest screen in the house. Fifteen lines, Freestyle, vs Friend. Tap twice to confirm, close the tab, open it again, and check that it still says vs Friend, because a reload resets it and you do not want to learn that with eight people watching.

Draw the bracket tonight. Six names, five games, one envelope. Then let the nine-year-old practice the rim-stone rule on you, so Thursday's first round is not the first time anyone has seen it. The two-player setup covers the rest of what one screen and two people needs.