title: algorithm to check a connect four field
body: <p>I'm wondering what's the best way to check for a winner on a connect four field.</p>
  
  <p>I'm interested in what you guys think and whether there is some "well-known" algorithm for this sort of problems?</p>
  
  <p>Solution:</p>
  
  <p>I implemented Ardavan's hash-table solution in Python.</p>
  
  <p>I let the algorithm run over every field once. The best checking time with my implementation was 0.047 ms, the worst 0.154 ms and the average 0.114 ms on my Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU T9600 @ 2.80GHz. This is fast enough for my needs, and the algorithm seems neat to me.</p>