The triangle game introduced by Chvátal and Erdős (1978) is one of the old and famous combinatorial games. For n,q∈N, the (n,q)-triangle game is played by two players, called Maker and Breaker, on the complete graph Kn. Alternately Maker claims one edge and thereafter Breaker claims q edges of the graph. Maker wins the game if he can claim all three edges of a triangle, otherwise Breaker wins. Chvátal and Erdős (1978) proved that for q<2n+2−5/2≈1.414n Maker has a winning strategy, and for q≥2n Breaker has a winning strategy. Since then, the problem of finding the exact leading constant for the threshold bias of the triangle game has been one of the interesting open problems in combinatorial game theory. In fact, the constant is not known for any graph with a cycle and we do not even know if such a constant exists. Balogh and Samotij (2011) slightly improved the Chvátal–Erdős constant for Breaker’s winning strategy from 2 to 1.958 with a randomized approach. Since then no progress was made. In this work, we present a new deterministic strategy for Breaker’s win whenever n is sufficiently large and q≥(8/3+o(1))n≈1.633n, significantly reducing the gap towards the lower bound of the threshold bias. In previous strategies Breaker chooses his edges such that one node is part of the last edge chosen by Maker, whereas the remaining node is chosen more or less arbitrarily. In contrast, we introduce a suitable potential function on the set of nodes. Breaker aims to decrease the potential, and picks edges that connect the most ‘dangerous’ nodes. A crucial point of the analysis is that the total potential of the game may increase even for a constant number of rounds, but then drops down. At the end of the game it is below a critical level connected to Breaker’s win.