What this study measures
This page is a data study, not a strategy guide. It asks one question nobody seems to have published an answer to: does it matter which of the nine stones you win? To find out, the site's AI played 400 games of the base game against itself, with the same strength on both sides and a fixed seed. Every game ended with a winner. At the end of each game we wrote down three things: who held each stone, which three adjacent stones closed the win when the game ended that way, and which stone was claimed first.
The stones are numbered 1 to 9 from left to right. These are the same 400 games behind our Schotten Totten tips, where you will find how often each kind of win occurs and what the first claim is worth. What each card value from 1 to 9 does in these games is in our Schotten Totten card value statistics. Here we only look at position on the line.
Two copies of one AI are not two people. They see the same things, value the same things and never bluff, so read the figures as the pull of the board itself, not as a law of human play.
The geometry before the data
You win with any five stones, or with three adjacent ones. The line holds seven groups of three adjacent stones: 1-2-3, 2-3-4 and so on up to 7-8-9. Count how many of those groups each stone belongs to and the line is lopsided before a single card is played. Stones 1 and 9 sit in one group each. Stones 2 and 8 sit in two. Stones 3 to 7 sit in three.
So an edge stone does less for the three-in-a-row win than any other, while it counts exactly the same towards five stones. If the board pulls anywhere, it should pull towards the centre. The question is how hard.
Who holds each stone at the end
| Stone | Groups of three | Winner holds | Loser holds | Open | Winner's share |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1 | 190 | 131 | 79 | 59.2% |
| 2 | 2 | 181 | 122 | 97 | 59.7% |
| 3 | 3 | 228 | 107 | 65 | 68.1% |
| 4 | 3 | 224 | 103 | 73 | 68.5% |
| 5 | 3 | 202 | 115 | 83 | 63.7% |
| 6 | 3 | 221 | 102 | 77 | 68.4% |
| 7 | 3 | 209 | 121 | 70 | 63.3% |
| 8 | 2 | 205 | 121 | 74 | 62.9% |
| 9 | 1 | 191 | 130 | 79 | 59.5% |
Counts out of 400 games. Win conditions: Schotten Totten rulebook, transcribed by RulesPal; figures: the site's game engine, base game, seed 20261011, the same AI on both sides, its search set to 200 iterations; in the base game it plays its heuristic move without running the search, so that setting has no effect.
The geometry shows through, but gently. On average the winner holds an edge stone in 190 games and an inner stone in 210. The edges also go to the loser more often: 131 and 130 games, against 113 on average for the inner seven. Stones 3, 4 and 6 lead the table. Stone 2 trails it, just below the two edges, although the geometry gives it two groups of three.
How much of that is chance? For a single stone held by the winner in about half the games, 400 games give a spread of roughly 10 games either way. Averages are steadier: chance moves the gap between the edge and inner averages by about 8 games, so 20 is clearly outside it, and it points the way the geometry predicts. But it is small: a stone in the middle is held by the winner in about 53% of games, an edge stone in about 48%. Stone 5 sitting below its neighbours is within the noise. Stone 2 is harder to wave away: 181 is about three spreads below the inner average. It is also the stone most often left open (97), and its winner's share (59.7%) is level with the edges'. One run cannot say whether that is real, so read it as an open question, not a rule.
One more column is worth a look. About 1.7 stones are still unclaimed when a typical game ends, with no edge pattern (65 to 97 per stone). Games stop as soon as one side wins, so the last stones in dispute are wherever the fight happened to be.
Where three-adjacent wins close
In 245 of the 400 games, the winner held three adjacent stones. Some of them held four or five in a row, which counts as more than one group, so we recorded 289 winning groups in all:
| Group of three | 1-2-3 | 2-3-4 | 3-4-5 | 4-5-6 | 5-6-7 | 6-7-8 | 7-8-9 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wins it closed | 37 | 46 | 44 | 45 | 39 | 41 | 37 |
The groups come out nearly flat. An even spread would put about 41 wins in each; every group falls between 37 and 46. The two end groups, 1-2-3 and 7-8-9, share the bottom at 37, about 4 below an even spread; with a chance spread of about 6 games per group, that is within the noise. The pull towards the centre comes from the stones themselves taking part in more groups, not from any group being easier to complete. Stone 4 takes part in 135 winning groups, stone 1 in 37.
Where the first stone falls
Is there an opening stone, one that tends to be claimed first? No. The first claim fell between 39 and 54 times on each of the nine stones. In 18 games two stones were claimed on the same turn, which is why the counts add up to 418. Stone 4, one of the stones the winner holds most often by the end, is also one of the two claimed first least often, with stone 8.
The first claim most likely goes where the cards make a proof possible first, which depends on the deal rather than the position. How to prove a stone before you claim it is covered in how to claim a stone in Schotten Totten.
What it changes at the table
Three practical readings, in order of confidence.
First, no stone is a must-win. The most valuable stone in this sample is held by the winner in 57% of games, the least valuable in 45%. Fight for the stone your hand can take, not for a spot on the line. Your cards and your opponent's decide far more than the position does.
Second, when two fights are otherwise equal, prefer the inner stone. It sits in up to three groups of three adjacent stones, so it keeps more three-in-a-row wins open for you and closes more for your opponent. The Schotten Totten strategy guides show how to build a cluster around such a stone.
Third, an edge stone is still a stone. It counts in full towards the five-stone win, and conceding it for free is how a game slips away on five. If you want to see how those choices play out over a whole game, read the Schotten Totten rules first and then try the Schotten Totten expert variant, where every claim waits a turn and the order of your fights matters even more.
The study in five lines
- The winner holds the two edge stones less often than the seven inner ones: 190 games out of 400 on average, against 210.
- That gap is real but modest: about 20 games in 400, where chance alone would move the two averages apart by around 8.
- Stones 3, 4 and 6 are the ones the winner holds most often, yet no single stone decides the game.
- Among three-adjacent wins, every stretch of the line closes a win at a similar rate; the two end groups, 1-2-3 and 7-8-9, share the bottom, only slightly behind the rest.
- The first stone to be claimed can sit anywhere on the line. There is no opening stone.
Frequently asked questions
Which stone is the most important in Schotten Totten?
None by much. In 400 games between two copies of the AI, the winner held stones 3, 4 and 6 most often (221 to 228 games each) and stone 2 least often (181). On average the inner stones matter a little more because each one sits in more possible three-in-a-row wins, but no stone is a must-win. The least-held stone in this run is itself an inner one.
Should I fight for the edge stones?
Less than for the others. An edge stone belongs to a single group of three adjacent stones, the inner ones to two or three. In our games the edges went to the loser more often than the inner stones did. An edge still counts fully towards the five-stone win.
How were these Schotten Totten statistics measured?
The site's AI played 400 games of the base game against itself, with the same settings on both sides and a fixed seed, so the run can be repeated and gives the same numbers. For each game we noted who held every stone at the end, which three adjacent stones closed the win, and which stone was claimed first.
Does this hold for games between people?
Only roughly. Two copies of the same AI read the board the same way and never bluff. The numbers show where the line pulls when both players play well; a human opponent can pull it elsewhere.