AbstractWe show that there is an m = 2n + o(n), such that, in the Maker-Breaker gameplayed on Zdwhere Maker needs to put at least m of his marks consecutively in oneof n given winning directions, Breaker can force a draw using a pairing strategy.This improves the result of Kruczek and Sundberg who showed that such apairing strategy exists if m > 3n. A simple argument shows that m has to be atleast 2n + 1 if Breaker is only allowed to use a pairing strategy, thus the main termof our bound is optimal...