Nice List but u forgot to put me in it lol u might know my old nick MadbuII Or Mike1993 :p :p :p 

I should be around no.65 :O

Not many replies yet. 
What do you think about the list? Do you miss someone on it? What do you think about the top 5 players? Are they worthy of being there? Tell me what you think. Better than not answering at all.

I thought this forum was active. But apparently someone was lying to me or you are all ignoring my posts.

A lot of players have improved very much the last year and this is wat i think is a more correct order of the top 5 players this year.

Top 5:

1. Brädspelaren

 100% in all regular 5mb starts + knows also many other diffrent wierd variations like 116 and 326. 

2. Eliten

 I havnt played eliten myself but according to other players he should be extremly good in many diffrent variation.

3. London

 Knows many diffrent starts and he has really intresting antis.

4. o_O_loil

 Knows many diffrent starts but he has been inactive for a while.

5. qwer?

 I have improved extremly much the last year and learned how to play most of the 5mb variations and i always play diffrent starts.

Thank you for your post, qwer. 

As you probably noticed I wrote "all times" on my list. This means that players who are inactive now may stand a chance being there if I believe they are better than the ones playing today.
Your list is only looking on which players are the best right now. Since I have not played a lot (or basically nothing at all) the last few years I cannot make a comment on it.

I still think this is the correct order, even if you include players from the past. Because today its so much easier to learn diffrent variations thanks to vianiato.

The first list got so many errors so its pointless to talk about that.

qwer:

I think your list is pretty tight, but i think gzzo should be up there with brad and eliten.

I also know that ur better than nr 5 on your list =)

And the players i have played, i would say eliten is the best antiplayer ever.

I am surprised someone tells me this list has soooo many errors. I talked to many players who played a lot during 2007 and together with them this list was made.
The criterions are simple, but may be hard defineable.

But thank you for your reply Relfson. Even though I think you are angry that you were not rated higher than place 22 in early 2008. Maybe that is one explanation why you are going so agressively towards this list.

And did I get this right?! You think the top 4 players today are all from Blip? I guess you are not looking around especially much.

I also think the first list has many errors... 
But ofcourse its very hard to tell how good all the players are.

Qwers list is a bit better i think but just as relfson said i think that g-zz0 should be there also.

It might sound wierd that 4 blip players should be on the top 5 list... 
I play on all the diffrent c4 sites i know about and I have only found a few really good players from other sites but they are still not quite as strong as the best players from blip.

I will also try to make a top 10 list according to the best players i have faced.
(Note brädspelaren is not in this list because i cant play myself)

Topp 10:
1. 

Eliten

2. 

G-zz0_

3. 

Qwer

4. 

London

5. 

o_O_loil

6. 

Johnny_lynch

7. 

Relfson

8. 

Peter

9. 

Odysses

10. 

R00tb33r

/Bradspelaren

Lol, sorry. I didnt mean to sound angry.. I dont wanna be higher up on the list, lol =)

What i ment with your errors is for example that qwer is not on the list at all, and hes a top5 player now.. And u put players like jerome, me and others over jops are just simple wrong. He made vianiato for god sakes..

I know all players u have on top 5 (not charles though), and brad is not nr 4 to take another example..


Peace out man :)

And to reply to your last post;

I think i know of most the good players now (players who knows all the 10 starts).. And by them, the best players are from blip yes. London is offcourse also at the top5.

Qwer was just 100% on the normal starts around the time when the list was made. 
So its understandable that he isnt on this list.

After we started in the same school last year I started to teach him how to play the 10 starts 100%. 
When he where good enough we started to focus on all the other wierd variations and this explains how he improved so much the last year.

ok, just for the sake of it, heres my list 2 :)

1. Eliten + Brad
2. G-zz0_
3. Qwer
4. London
5. o_O_loil
6. Florida
7. Johnny_lynch
8. Malik
9. R00tb33r
10. Peter11ar
11. sexy_amanda

he u missed me.i being playing c4 since like sept of 2008.many no more over there iam going to start playing more....

I notice many lists but it would be necessary to clarify what are the foundations of these lists: is it about different starts or variations, or the fact to don't be breaking? We can define numerous lists, but in a objective way, best would be to define the principles.

Theres alot of players that are hard to break.. that got nothing to do with being good i think.. any noob can learn perf play.

To be classified ass good in my opinion, u gotta be 100 in all 10 starts, and also be good in different antis.

The best players know many antibreaks (play wrongstarts and win), plus they know the wierd lines like qwer talked about.

But i think that the best antiplayers are the best.. The players that have broken me the most, are players that i look at as the best.

Okay, I can without a shadow of a doubt claim that my list did not include "anti break" skills.
The skills in 471/417 starts are neither of GREAT importance in my opinion.

Three important measurements are required oncase my personal interest:

1. To be sure about what you do. 
I am not a BIG fan of those who practises with vianiato or any other program for a few weeks and then can play most starts perfectly. When I play someone I try looking on if the player truly understands why he should play "there and not there".

2. Breaking skills: Breaking pros at wierd setups (excluding the breaking anti positions; when it is a matter of "searching" positions) and breaking "noob players to average". (I hope you got that without any more explanations)

3. The guessed (can't find the right word/words for this sentence) time spent on playing the game.


WEST HAM

THANK YOU (c)

Okay, I can without a shadow of a doubt claim that my list did not include "anti break" skills.
The skills in 471/417 starts are neither of GREAT importance in my opinion.

Three important measurements are required oncase my personal interest:

1. To be sure about what you do.
I am not a BIG fan of those who practises with vianiato or any other program for a few weeks and then can play most starts perfectly. When I play someone I try looking on if the player truly understands why he should play "there and not there".

2. Breaking skills: Breaking pros at wierd setups (excluding the breaking anti positions; when it is a matter of "searching" positions) and breaking "noob players to average". (I hope you got that without any more explanations)

3. The guessed (can't find the right word/words for this sentence) time spent on playing the game.


WEST HAM

THANK YOU (c)

I think both starting and breaking is important but breaking is maybe a bit more important on higher levels because you need to understand the start to play the anti well. 

Anti-breaks is like the ultimate test, a mix of both breaking and starting. After you do the mistake on purpose you need to play very creatively to make the breaker go wrong. When the breaker goes wrong it suddenly transposes into a winning start and therefore you need to test your starting skills. 
So anti-breaks should definitely be a part of evaluation.

Playing variation like 417 and 116 is a challange which improves your understanding of the game and therefore these should also be a part of the evaluation?!

I know there are some players who only study the moves and not the ideas behind them... 
These player are very hard to notice because i rarely ask a player "what is the purpose of that move?". 

My conclusion is:
The player who got the best understanding and knows most winning themes and ideas is the best player according to me.

I dont understand your statement.. u can learn the easy starts from vianiato aswell as the hard ones.. the hard ones are still harder to learn.. 
Learning antis is even harder.
Acording to u, people who learn from a prog is not the best?

Dont u think cymantex knows the easy starts? It is there knowledge that makes the best the best.

And finaly....: You said that antiskills matters. As brad said, it is not posible to be a top antiplayer without knowing the starts to break.
Its possible to learn all starts without being good in antis. Eliten, brad qwer ect knows how to break most errors.. perfect breaks are so much harder than learning different perfect starts from vian.

I completely agree with relfson, many players know  basic starts and are with difficulty breakable. But,few these players are capable of break the other good players. The difference lives in the fact that an excellent player must be capable of influencing and of misleading another player according to his perfect break.It testifies of the understanding of the game and its capacity to thwart the opposite strategy.   According to me, to break is thus more difficult, more interesting and consequently, the most capable persons in break are the best

Imho breaking is more of a subjective/relative thing, and shouldn't be a main factor in evaluation someone's skill. Breaking depends on the mind of your opponent--different things confuse different people. Plus, antiplay is mostly memorization of a set of antis that have a small chance of working on a good player. Many anti-moves, if you analyze them individually, are arguably bad moves from an objective/logical standpoint. What makes these irrational anti-moves good is that they, for whatever reason, can confuse people.

Breaking certainly is a skill. But I think the skill of breaking should be viewed separately from the skill of connect four playing. I think the latter is defined by a player's ability to comprehend *why* moves are correct, and the ability to solve for the correct move in unfamiliar situations (without relying much on memory), which are pretty much two ways of saying the same thing. 

It's hard to know who is best at playing without memory, since there are only so many non-trivial moves and since the c4 community has pretty much encountered them all already (and because you can't read someone's mind to see if they were using memory for a certain move). However, it is possible to determine whether someone understands his/her moves or not, simply by asking the person why that move was right. 

Since I haven't gone around asking every good player why every one of their moves was right, I can't offer a definitive list of who's the best. (Also i've been away from the game for a while and don't know who has improved or dropped. I can only speak for myself, and in that regard I'll wager that I've dropped considerably below the #11 spot by now, westy :P)

I don't think there's much to gain from attempting to precisely rank players in a game like c4, because players close in rank are very hard to distinguish between. Rather, one can just put players into categories: There's a few morbidly good players, then a handful of great players, then a bunch of good players whose minor flaws are more detectable, then some intermediate players who are relatively new to using the expert strategy, and then the rest of the world can be grouped into the n00b category.

and why should breaking be a seperate thing than playing c4? You play breakingstrategy just as much as u play starts.. There is no way breaking is less important than startvariations, cz its 50% of the game.

The logic is simple: you can not be a great antiplayer without knowing all starts. Therefor, the best antiplayers already knows the starts.

Thank you so_niiiiiice, whoever you are, for taking these argumentations to a new dimension.
However, I want to hear you explain, once again and a little more precise, why breaking skills should not be "a part of evaluation".

And i don't consider starts a skill either, because that becomes mere memory just like antis. Yes, they're both important for a c4 player, but when i talk about pure c4 ability, i'm talking about ability to solve moves without consulting memory. 

Though now i realize, this wasn't a ranking of solving ability, it was a ranking of overall best players, which i guess most would say is a combination of starts, antis and solving ability. Me personally, i rank players in my mind based on their solving ability. I will acknowledge, though, that if someone is good at antis/starts, they tend to be good at solving as well.

If there were to ever be some international c4 tournament, i think a good format might be something like this:

Part 1: 7x6

Players play regular games of c4, bad players are eliminated so it's only good players remaining. They play X games and if there's no winner, we then have them tell each other starting moves and play from there. We do X games of that format. If still no winner, Part 2.

Part 2: random board size (non-trivial only).
Part 3: random board size.

Part 5: random variant, random board size.
Part 6: random variant, random board size.
...
Part N: they're both crowned champion, or one dies of sleep deprivation, etc.

This tourney would truly be a test of c4 skill, and i think whoever was champion, would very likely be the best player in the world.

whoever i am? I thought I gave it away in that post, but if not, i suppose i'll remain anonymous :P

Solving ability is NOT very important when it comes to c4 because its such a simple game. The player with the most knowledge about the game is simply the best... 
Otherwise we can just say thats some fantastic analyser like Kasparov is the c4 worlchamp because he can solve all positions fastest.

Its also unfair to use diffrent board sizes because the strategy can change drasticly if you change the size of the board. It can be like another game...

If were going to do the tournament this way then its just to give the players an iq-test and the player with the highest score is the winner.


I think its more fair to do something like this:

Part 1: Normal connect 4
Part 2: 3mb
Part 3: 5mb
Part 4: Irregular 5mb
Part 5: Test of breaking skills (anti-break)
Part 6: 7mb
Part 7: Irregular 7mb

>

Otherwise we can just say thats some fantastic analyser like Kasparov is the c4 worlchamp because he can solve all positions fastest.

That's not true at all, kasparov wouldn't be able to solve a c4 position, nor any smart person who doesn't yet know c4 strategy and doesn't yet have vision for the game.

>

Its also unfair to use diffrent board sizes because the strategy can change drasticly if you change the size of the board.

No, the strategy is the same, it's all the same game. The only thing that changes is which threats each player needs, but that's easy to figure out, you can figure that out in less than a minute once you know the general principle (which i imagine all good players know). Once you figure out which type of threat you need for each color, the game is the same: figure out a way to make your threat, and prevent your opponent from making his. All the tactics are the same, and types of setups and attacks.

This is what i mean about memory vs brain. If you use the memory approach, you have to have seen a position before to get the move right. So for each board size you have to memorize tons of moves. But if you use the analysis approach, you can solve positions you haven't seen before.

When it comes to that ability, we all have much room to improve. From my observation, london had the best analytical ability of anyone (for one, he's the only player who's perfect in 9x6, which means he couldn't have learned it via memorization), but probably even his is far from perfect.

Almost impossible to determine who is the best c4 player. But in my humble opinion I think it is bradspelaren. But there are many many many more awesmoe players.

Off-topic question: did c4 disappear from kurnik...?

You can still play C4 on Kurnik.

PROBLEM: Just a few years ago they changed all rooms to "no ranking" which made myself stop playing there.

I pretty much agree with Mr Loveable on everything in this thread, except I definitely consider breaking an important skill, thus should be a part of the evaluation. All though, as my sweet dream stated, it's pretty pointless trying to determine who's the best.

Its true that the basic strategy doesnt change but i was more aiming for the opening strategy...

Its almost impossible to calculate the first moves in the game. Take the 7x7 board size for example, after the starter playes d1 then the breaker must play d2 to get a draw and the only way to know this is by playing many games with the board size or have some kind of program which can calculate it for you. But the problem is that there is no sites with 7x7 board size which i know about and most other board sizes doesnt have programs for them either.. 

So in general the first 5 moves of the game is just going to be played by intuition and if you meet a really skilled player the opening moves might be your reason for failure.

I also doubt that all the good players knows how to figure out the rowsystem for other board sizes because many of the good players havnt even played any other board size than 7x6.

Actually many of the tactics might also be diffrent because there exists many winning themes in the other board sizes which can never arise in the 7x6 board size and therefore you must often think diffrent than you would in the 7x6 board size. This is why is said "it can be like another game".

But i really like your idea of testing the players analytic skills. :)

We can maybe both crown a "7x6 c4 champion" and a champion with all the board sizes. ^^

>

We can maybe both crown a "7x6 c4 champion" and a champion with all the board sizes.

Yes but what if there's no champion after many, many games in 7x6? I suspect that's what would happen if there were a real-life world tourney, there would be like a 5-person stalemate. If the tournament were today, that wouldn't happen, but if we heard an announcement that it will take place in a few months, we'd all start training really hard and several of us would be flawless by the time the tournament started.

>

Actually many of the tactics might also be diffrent because there exists many winning themes in the other board sizes which can never arise in the 7x6 board size

The starts/antis are different because an extra row or column can greatly change the effect of certain moves, but I still say the tactics are the same. Setting up threats involves the same exact thinking: combining diagonal and horizontal attacks to make a threat, using one type of threat to make another (e.g. even to make an odd), protecting your threat from being negated, using zugzwang to make your threat, etc. etc. Maybe on a bigger board, more things are happening at once than in 7x6, but it's more of the same things.

>

I also doubt that all the good players knows how to figure out the rowsystem for other board sizes because many of the good players havnt even played any other board size than 7x6.

Well they should know :O 
Even if you don't know how to figure it out, you can just memorize 3 rules and know the strategy for any board size automatically:
Even area, Even height = 7x6 strategy
Even area, Odd height = 8x7 strategy 
Odd area = 7x7 strategy

From those 3 rules, if you tell me the board size is 5338x6043, I can tell you it's the same strategy as 8x7, because the area is even and the height is odd.

>

So in general the first 5 moves of the game is just going to be played by intuition

This I have to agree is true if the board size is new to you. Unless you had like 10 minutes to think about each of the first few moves. Maybe that could be a rule in the tourney lol. But maybe it's not bad to test a player's intuition, just hopefully both players are unfamiliar with the board size so it's a test of both players' intuitions.

Maybe after the 7x6 segment of the tourney, the "random board size" part, instead of playing 1 random board size until someone wins, it should be best of 3 or 5 sizes (and then another best of 3 if no one wins), so that the player with better analysis and intuition wins, and the luck factor is reduced (so if one player knows one of the sizes by memory, and opponent knows another size, the two will cancel out and hopefully the 3rd size will be one that neither (or both) player knows).

Heh i wonder why i'm discussing this at so much length, it's not like there's ever gonna be a real c4 tournament =(

"I pretty much agree with Mr Loveable on everything in this thread, except I definitely consider breaking an important skill, thus should be a part of the evaluation. All though, as my sweet dream stated, it's pretty pointless trying to determine who's the best."

First, explain to me why it is pointless to try determine who is the best. Secondly, explain why I have seen many Top lists from your side (if you now feel like it's pointless).

My personal opinion is that it is pointless to, in every situation, lend back on a list like this.

And it is probably impossible to determine who is and/or was the best player of all times. But still, I feel like my list is pretty accurate measured on a gig-law accuracyy.

And I would like not to be offended by former list-makers again. Especially not considered that this is my first list ever made and I tried doing a good job on it.

Plus, mmaybe people will find this list on information very interesting in the future. When they can say, oh cool, this is how C4 looked in the early stage of its days.

> but I still say the tactics are the same.

I think we are talking about 2 diffrent things here. :p
In chess there exist tactical and positional positions and I think they both exist in connect 4 to.
For example 41565546 is an example of a tactical position where the starter must play couple of forced moves which doesnt follow the rule of the rowsystem. A positional position is a position which does follow the rule of the rowsystem and 41536765665 can be an example for a positional position. And Ofcourse if you change the size of the board then new tactical positions will arise.

>  i wonder why i'm discussing this at so much length, it's not like there's ever gonna be a real c4 tournament

True, hehe :)

>

And I would like not to be offended by former list-makers again.

You must not know eliten well, else you'd know he meant absolutely no offense. By "pointless", he didn't mean "stupid"; he meant "impossible". The **context** was him agreeing with me (who else could Mr. Loveable be :P), and i hadn't criticized list-makers, therefore neither was he. I had said that ranking is difficult to do, therefore that's all he was saying.

The tactics you're talking about are trivial. Even with that definition, I still don't understand how they change with board size. And even if they do, any good 7x6 player would have no trouble with them at any board size.

>

A positional position is a position which...

Well phrased :p

> I still don't understand how they change with board size

Lets see if i can explain it better...

In the 41565546 line the starter need to use a combination also called a "tactic" to win the game. 
A combination is a serie of forced moves which doesnt follow the rowsystem.
Another example for a combination can be 4134 when the starter can use a very simple tactic to win the game and this move is to play 5 with a double threat. 
Because this move didnt follow the rowsystem its called a "tactic".
These tactics can also appear in the end of the game and therefore if you change the size of the board new tactical possibilities will arise. 

> 7x6 player would have no trouble with them at any board size

*cough* I always lose because of these new tactics when i try a new boardsize.
I must be some kind of exception :(


> Well phrased
me nott spik inglesh verri god ;'(

>First, explain to me why it is pointless to try determine who is the best.

>>I don't think there's much to gain from attempting to precisely rank players in a game like c4, because players close in rank are very hard to distinguish between. Rather, one can just put players into categories: There's a few morbidly good players, then a handful of great players, then a bunch of good players whose minor flaws are more detectable, then some intermediate players who are relatively new to using the expert strategy, and then the rest of the world can be grouped into the n00b category.

>Secondly, explain why I have seen many Top lists from your side (if you now feel like it's pointless).
I used

Oh, I didn't know I had made *that* many lists, but I admit, making those lists was a mistake. I know better now. My lists were full of flaws, just as everyone else's, just like yours is. =P

This is not an offence, it's merely my opinion.

basically yh, those who have memorised the moves, which 2 b honest is all of us, can also solve the game, any1 who attempts to solve the game immediately without help from a prog wud b a long time learning, secondly, u do not have 2 memorise a lot of starts etc,2 b able 2 play all the starts as all starts are variations of other starts e.g. 4,3,6,6,7,5,3 is almost = to ,4,3,6,5,7,3 etc , u get the idea, there r others but im jus runnin with my thots.

Thirdly, relfson shud b a lot higher in any1's list as he knows a lot, also he is right with the idea that the best anti players r the best players as 2 b a gd anti playeru need 2 know how 2 beat the starts.

fourthly, im jon lynch 4 those who do n0t no.


fifthly, we all no eliten, gzzo, qwer et al r the best players, blip is just better thn other sites altho there is a risk of blip playe

Cymantex, perhaps you should give me an example.  Change vianiato's board size and play around until you find an example of tactics that that board size has that 7x6 does not have.  Then tell me the board size and paste the moves.

frank..

8x7 is very different from 7x6 positional wise, cz of in 7x6 first player got first, thierd and fifth row. In 8x7, thats only the case for the first row, then in the next one its the second player who got first, thierd ect.. Think u probably know that, and if u do ;-) then forget about my reply.

I agree with listmaking being pointless in any official way, but that doesnt mean their not fun.
We got the forum active again for a short time now, just because of listmaking.. Every c4player loves to see these lists =))

mucho love

relf zone

I see a lot of people I used to play with way back in the O.K. days I suppose. Maybe I can drop in and chat and play for a little while.

Hey!
Haven't been on for quite a long time, but I think this thread is really interesting and sometimes even philosophical.

So what determines a good player?

In my opinion, a good player wins every start, that's his duty. And he is able to break or at least to bring his opponent in unknown situations that he has to master without using his memory.
That's the simple theory.
And the good player CAN actually master the unknown situations.

Not the player that can memorize most variations of starts is the best player! But someone who knows only one solution for one anti cannot really be a dangerous opponent because he does not understand new situations (which a good player can bring to daylight).

That's part of my philosophy.

By the way: I find it ridiculous to learn thousands of variations by heart using Vianiato. That's why I don't think that the current "best" players are really the best of all times. The matches have become extremely complex, compared to those two or three years ago.
There were times when people only had Velena or Mustrum. Or less. Or nothing. And those who were able to win their starts are the best.
The best two players in my opinion: Nightlight and DevilGirl. Teacher and pupil. They rocked. Without Vianiato.

And at my times of c4-addiction, Eliten was unbeatable and I guess he still is.

And the most flexible player is London. Perfect in 7x6, 8x7 and 9x6.

Peace out.

/Cymantex, perhaps you should give me an example.

Geez, ok...
Because the other boardsizes have other "strategies" many "new" tactical positions will arise. I can show one example.

1= Starter
2= Second 
| x | x | 2 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 
| x | x | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 
| x | x | 2 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 
| x | x | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 
| x | x | 2 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 
| 1 | x | 1 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 
| 2 | x | 2 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 
Second player to move.

This is a simple example of a "new" tactic. Because of this boardsize new strategies the starter can hold 2 odds in a way which is never possible in the 7x6 boardsize. There is similiar tactic in the 7x6 boardsize but the fact that it is on the bottom on the board is really confusing.

Ofcourse there exists many many more positions similiar to this one. 

Im pretty sure that i can solve all the positions in the 7x6 boardsize if im just given enough time. The reason why i can do this is because i already have so much experience with the tactics and diffrent winning themes. 

However if i try another boardsize with a diffrent strategy than 7x6 i can't even solve one single position correctly because i havnt got the vision for those boardsizes winningthemes and tactics yet...
Also getting used to the new rowsystems will definetely take some time. 

But i am able to solve many of the positions in the 9x6 boardsize. The reason for this is because i can use the same type of thinking as in the 7x6 boardsize. But, still, many of the winning themes is diffrent so i cant solve the positions as effectively.

looool first of all, you could have just copied and pasted from Vianiato, like 4344334433443375756555577771175666666, instead of so painstakingly making a graphic display. But i'm touched that you'd go through so much effort just for me :p

Second, i see that your definition of "tactic" is my definition of "strategy", and that's why we were in disagreement. Now that i know what you meant, i don't dispute that different board sizes have different winning requirements for each player.

But like i said in my other post, you don't need experience playing a board size, to be familiar with its strategy, because all you need to know are those 3 rules i said.  There's one strategy for ODDxEVEN boards (ie 7x6 and 9x6), one for ODDxODD, and one for EVENxODD.  And EVENxEVEN has the same strategy as ODDxEVEN (8x8 has the same strategy as 7x6, for example).

Cool :)

you see, most people think the best players are their friends or a program the spectated over time and has remembered their nicks. 

====================================================

I just wanted to add that in this topic.

Thasnkyou,

Chris Zimmer

What is cool? I thought this thread was dead until you just came from nowhere and wrote "Very cool :)"

id probably say steeldragon, xenex and a few other should be on that list. morly was a good player, dced here all the time tho mostly played at kurnik.

Steeldragon=Metaldragon, nr.9 on the list. Top 10 player!