Quads & Quarto strategy: how to never hand over the winning piece

By Alejandro Rioja · September 15, 2026 · Every example position was checked with the Quads game engine.

This guide assumes you know the rules. If not, read how to play Quads first, which takes two minutes. Everything here also applies to classic Quarto. Quads always counts 2×2 squares as wins, and they make every idea below matter even more.

Cells are named by column and row: A1 is top-left, D4 is bottom-right.

1. Read the threats before every hand-off

Call a row, column, diagonal or 2×2 square with three pieces that share a trait an open threat. Its empty cell wins for any piece with that trait. Checking whether a piece is safe is just a checklist: does this piece match the shared trait of any open threat? If so, it loses.

In this position there are two open threats:

• Column A (A1, A2, A4) is all light, so any light piece wins at A3.
• Row 4 (A4, C4, D4) is all square, so any square piece wins at B4.

A safe piece has to be dark to break column A and round to break row 4. Ten pieces are still off the board. Seven of them lose on the spot, and only these three are safe:

Every open threat you add rules out about half of the pieces left, because each trait splits the set in two. Two threats on different traits leave roughly a quarter. That's why games flip from relaxed to desperate within a couple of turns.

Don't forget squares. Players who learned classic Quarto often check only lines. Quads has nine 2×2 squares on top of the ten lines, and a surprising number of losses come from a square nobody was watching.

2. Place so you still have a safe piece to give

A turn is two decisions, and the placement comes first. It's easy to make a harmless-looking placement and then find that every piece you could give now loses. Before you place, ask: after this, is there still a safe piece to hand over?

Here you're holding the tall dark square hollow piece , six pieces remain in the pool, and seven cells are empty:

Six of the seven empty cells lose, even though none of them wins or loses right away. Each one sets up a threat that, together with the threats already on the board, covers every piece left. Only C2 works. After placing there you can still hand over the short dark square hollow piece , and your opponent can't win with it.

The habit that helps is to read the hand-off before you place. Pick the piece you intend to give, then check the placement doesn't make it unsafe. Strong players choose both halves of the turn together.

3. The squeeze: make every piece a winner

Against a careful opponent, the win rarely comes from a mistake. It comes from a squeeze. You place and hand over a safe piece so that wherever they put it, every piece left is a winner for you. They're forced to give you the game.

You're holding the tall light round hollow piece . Five pieces are left in the pool after it:

There are six cells to choose from and five pieces you could give. Of all 30 combinations, exactly one wins by force: place on C4, then hand over the short dark square hollow piece .

After C4 there are three open threats, all of them 2×2 squares:

• C1–D1–C2–D2 is all solid, so it wins at D1.
• B3–C3–B4–C4 is all round, so it wins at B3.
• C3–D3–C4–D4 is all light, so it wins at D4.

The short dark square hollow piece is none of solid, round or light, so your opponent can't win with it. They have five cells to put it on, and the engine checked all five: wherever it goes, each of the four pieces left completes a winning shape for you. Whatever they give you next, you win.

The pattern to look for is several threats, each on a different trait, set up so the remaining pieces can't avoid all of them. Squares are ideal for this, because one placement can touch up to four of them at once.

Habits that win more games

• Scan all 19 shapes, every turn. Go through rows, then columns, then the two diagonals, then the nine squares. It feels slow at first and quickly becomes automatic.
• Count safe pieces, not just threats. If only one or two safe pieces are left, the next placement decides the game. Slow down.
• Don't give away your only safe piece if you can help it. If two pieces are safe now but only one will stay safe after the likely replies, keep that one for later.
• Early placements are about what they set up. The centre four cells (B2, C2, B3, C3) belong to the most winning shapes: a row, a column, a diagonal and up to four squares each. That makes them flexible but also dangerous.
• Count the pieces left. Near the end there are few pieces and few cells, so work the rest of the game out exactly rather than guessing. That's what the strongest computer opponents do.

How to practise

• Play the computer one level up. Quads has five levels. Master and Grandmaster search the endgame exactly, so losing to them shows you squeezes you didn't see coming. Play free in your browser.
• Do the daily puzzle. Hand-off puzzles drill section 1 and two-move puzzles drill sections 2 and 3. Today's puzzle.
• Read what perfect play looks like. We ran a solver over thousands of endgames. Is Quarto solved?

Frequently asked questions