Open Gomoku at Ply Yard and start a 15×15 game directly in your browser. You can practice against the AI, take turns with someone beside you on one screen, or open an online room and play a friend on another device in real time.
Three ways to play
AI play runs in your browser on multiple levels, using the open-source Rapfi engine and its neural-network weights. If the browser cannot start shared memory, that search falls back to this site's own engine. Local mode lets two people share one device and take turns. Online mode keeps both boards in sync through either a private invite link or a public room. None of these modes requires an account or app download.
The site uses a 15×15 board: Black moves first, and five or more connected stones in any horizontal, vertical, or diagonal line win. This is not tournament Renju, and the site does not provide official ratings or competition certification.
Built for reading and reviewing positions
Undo, hints, the move record, and replay help you find the move that changed a position. A hint offers one candidate point worth considering; it is not the only correct answer and does not constitute tournament-grade analysis.
AI levels are local practice settings, not ranks or ratings. Device performance may also affect how long the AI takes to think. The authors, license, and sources are in “Open-source engine and thanks” on this page.
How online rooms work
Private rooms stay out of the public lobby, and anyone with the invite link can enter. Public rooms appear in the lobby temporarily so another player can join. Once both players are seated, moves, resignations, draw requests, rematches, and connection status stay synchronized across both devices.
Rooms are not permanent game archives. A room closes automatically after an extended wait, a disconnection past its limit, or a period of inactivity after the game ends. Save a screenshot or your own record of an important game instead of treating a temporary room as long-term storage.
No accounts or player profiles
The site does not ask you to create a player account, and it does not offer friend lists, public profiles, or long-term rankings. You enter a room with a temporary link or room code, without providing a name, contact details, or other profile information.
For details about browser storage, online-room data, access logs, and traffic analytics, read the Privacy Policy.
About Ply Yard
Ply Yard makes browser-based boards and companion guides. This Gomoku site keeps its own visual design, rules explanations, and interaction logic, with the goal of making a game easy to start and giving you a place to understand the decisive shape after it ends.
Open-source engine and thanks
AI play on this site uses a browser build of Rapfi 0.43.2, an open-source Gomoku engine by Haobin Duan (dblue). The engine is distributed under the GNU GPL v3. The neural-network weights come from rapfi-networks and are released under CC0. This site still decides whether a move is legal. Rapfi and its authors do not endorse this site.
We thank Haobin Duan and the Rapfi contributors for making the engine and weights public. Parts of Rapfi come from Stockfish, and those authors are listed in Stockfish’s AUTHORS file. The weights included here are the networks mix9svqfreestyle and model210901.
