Tic Tac Toe – Play Online for Free

For many people Tic Tac Toe is the very first strategy game: a grid of three by three squares, X against O, and whoever gets three marks in a row first wins. In Britain it has been called noughts and crosses since the 19th century. The idea is much older still, since the Roman poet Ovid already describes a board game in which three stones had to stand in a line. In 1952 it became one of the earliest video games with a screen, OXO, written at the University of Cambridge, and in the 1983 movie WarGames a military supercomputer learns from Tic Tac Toe that some games cannot be won by anyone. Here you can play Tic Tac Toe online for free, against the computer or with a second person on the same device.

X Against O: Rules and Tips for Tic Tac Toe

The game is played on nine squares arranged in three rows of three. Players take turns putting their mark in an empty square, and once a mark is placed it stays put. As soon as someone connects three of their own marks across, down or diagonally, they win the round. If all nine squares are filled without such a line, the round is a tie.

• Who starts: X always moves first. Here, whoever opens a round plays X, and the first move alternates from round to round. You start the very first game.
• Against the computer: on Easy your opponent completes any line it is offered but often misses what you are setting up. On Normal it blocks you as soon as you are one square short of a line, but it does not always pick the strongest move. On Hard it never makes a mistake, and a tie is the best you can get there.
• Two players: the button with two figures switches to the mode for two people. You then take turns on one device, Player 1 against Player 2.
• Score: above the board the game keeps track of your wins and the ties. When a round is over, a click on the board or on "New Round" starts the next one, and switching modes resets the count.

There are 255,168 possible games, and yet the game has been completely solved: if both sides play perfectly, every game ends in a tie. So the only way to win is to exploit a mistake or set a trap. These tricks help:

• Open in a corner: when you go first, a corner is the trickiest opening move. Only the center saves your opponent; after any other reply you can force a win.
• Make a double threat: against someone who blocks every single threat, you can only win with a move that threatens two lines at once. Your opponent can close just one of them, and you complete the other on your next turn.
• Answer the right way: if your opponent opens in a corner, take the center at once. If they start in the center, your first mark belongs in a corner, because after a move to an edge they can force a win.
• Beware of two corners: if you hold the center and your opponent has two opposite corners, play an edge. Take one of the free corners instead and they force you to block while building their own double threat.
• Win first, then defend: if you can complete a line yourself, do it before you block a threat. Only when no win is available does your opponent's pair of marks deserve your move.

More Strategy Games with Rows, Pieces and Planning

If a game on nine squares is over too quickly for you, bigger boards are waiting here:

• Nine Men's Morris: three in a row is called a mill here, and every mill you close costs your opponent a piece. First all pieces are placed, then they move along the lines.
• Checkers: your pieces move diagonally forward, and jumping over an opponent's piece removes it from the board. Reach the last row and your piece becomes a king.
• Chess: the great classic among strategy games, with six kinds of pieces on sixty-four squares. The goal is to checkmate the enemy king.
• Chinese Checkers: a star-shaped board where your pieces hop over one another in long chains to reach the opposite point.
• Hangman: a different kind of duel, with a hidden word instead of a grid. Guess its letters before the drawing is finished.