No. 110 - Connect Four

It's Tuesday, which means Lost is on tonight. In looking back over last week's episode at Lostpedia.com, I was reminded that the game, Connect Four, appeared in the episode. It's not the first time it has shown up and is part of a recurring theme - pertaining to games - throughout the series. In fact, the whole show might end up being a game. We shall learn soon enough as the series comes to an end in May.

Carlton Cuse, a writer and executive producer on Lost, has said, "I like to use the baseball metaphor which is, you can go to a baseball game and if you don't know a lot about baseball, I think you can enjoy it on one level as a casual viewer and you can enjoy it on a much deeper level as a regular viewer."

I don't know if Carlton was referring to the TV viewers of Lost but he very well could have been.

Connect Four has 42 possible positions to put pieces in. 42 is one of the recurring numbers in Lost: 4, 8, 15, 16, 23 and 42.

I had not played it in many years until my kids received it as a gift in the last year or two.

I did not know that someone solved the game mathematically in 1988. That is, with perfect play, the first player can force a win by starting in the middle column. In game theory, "perfect play" is the behavior or strategy of a player which leads to the best possible outcome for that player regardless of the response by the opponent.

In other words, if you never make a mistake and play each turn perfectly, you can win if you go first and start in the middle column.

I suppose I must now share this information with my kids, although it seems that each day they become exponentially smarter. I might soon need any edge I can get :)