Fair play rules
Connect Four is a solved game: a computer can find the perfect move in any position. That is exactly why using one during a game is cheating. Ratings only mean something if every game is played by the two people at the board, from their own heads. These are the rules every account agrees to.
What counts as cheating
No solver, engine or analysis during a game
While a game is running you may not use any solver, engine, analysis board or tool that tells you what to play. That includes play4row's own analysis page, Pascal Pons' solver and its web versions, 2swap's weak solution, opening databases, apps, browser extensions and bots. Once the game is over, analyse it however you like.
No notes and no outside help
Play from memory. Looking at notes, written opening lines or saved positions during a game is cheating, and so is someone else suggesting moves. Studying openings before you play is encouraged.
Don't dodge Player 2
Connect Four favours the first player, so a record built mostly on Player 1 games is not a fair record. Aborting, leaving or declining a game is fine now and then. What is not allowed is doing it selectively: far more often when you get Player 2 than when you get Player 1. You may abort a game before you have made your own first move. Doing that again and again to avoid the second colour is Player-2 avoidance.
One account, and no arranged games
Each person plays on one account. Playing your own second account, letting someone else play on yours, and agreeing results with another player (win trading, throwing games) are all cheating.
Play your own moves
Every rated game is between two people. Using a script, bot or automation to make moves for you is cheating, even if it plays badly.
No stalling or rage-quitting
Letting your clock run down in a lost position, or disconnecting to avoid a loss, wastes your opponent’s time. Resign or play on.
Be decent in chat
No insults, harassment, hate or spam. Trash talk that would get you thrown out of a club gets you banned here.
Report honestly
Reports are read by people. Reporting players because you lost, or to harass them, is itself against the rules.
Allowed: analysing your games after they finish, studying openings, solving puzzles, playing our bots, and using the solver on finished games.
How games are checked
The solver analyses every game after it ends. Statistical checks then look for patterns honest players don't show: matching the solver far more often than people do, move timings, colour choices, and pairs of accounts that keep playing each other. Anything suspicious goes to a human moderator. Nothing bans anyone automatically.
Two kinds of ban
Conduct bans cover chat, stalling and other behaviour. Each new one is longer than the last: a week, a month, a year, then permanent. Fair-play bans are for cheating. They are permanent by default, and the player's games are voided.
Rating refunds
When a cheater's games are voided, each opponent gets back the rating they lost in those games, up to a little above their own best rating, and is told about it. Voided games stay in your history marked "Voided — fair play" but no longer count in stats or on the leaderboard.
How to report someone
Use the Report button on the game-over screen, at the top of a game review, or on the player's profile. Pick what happened and add move numbers or details if you can. A moderator looks at every report, and the player is never told who reported them.
Appeals
If you think a ban is a mistake, email hello@play4row.com from the address on your account. A different moderator reviews it. When a fair-play ban is reversed, the voided games and rating refunds are reversed too.