There are Exactly 14 Different Games of Tic-Tac-Toe
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 28 ธ.ค. 2023
- When it comes right down to it, there just aren't that many ways a game of Tic-Tac-Toe can go down. Join me as we investigate what it means for things to be different, with digressions into music, coding and math.
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The sequel is out now! th-cam.com/video/Cxm4qaGTB0M/w-d-xo.html Oh, and there's this: th-cam.com/video/O1gZxmvs8Oc/w-d-xo.html
ok.
Tic
@@joshacd150Tac
Try playing and calculating the game of super tic-tac-toe?
@@neovoid5008 I was searching for that, and I watched this video instead.
Now carry the same reasoning but for a game of chess 😅
10^120 games later
@@Thomas-rz5nt that 100^120 thing is actually a gross underestimate and has a very poor reasoning too.
Tick-tack-toe has been solved, chess, not even close to being solved...
Indeed the above process is essentially all of chess theory...
And let's just say that the total number of chess books in the world exceed a million books...
That's why computers win every time
A Chess board is not simetric.
There is only one true game of tic tac toe.
The one that results in a draw
The only winning move is not to play.
Yeah. I think, if 2 AIs were playing they'd always end with draw. All sane moves lead to a draw. Gotta not care at all to lose.
Perfectly balanced game: no one wins.
@@RedGallardo exactly what he said at the end
@@Henrex2000I was about halfway through and came to the comments to say what the first person did, saw his comment, then came here to say that I was searching for his comment, saw your comment, and then finished watching the video until the end.... Well played sir.. well played
there are only 3 games, one where o wins, one where x wins, and one where its a tie.
Wrong, there are 4. I’ll let you think about that one
@@Jungleali the one where you resign or the one where you dont play?
@@-CookieDev- I’m now going to spam random letters in a different language because I don’t know how to respond بعاهرذاهوت وصهتوبعغرقتهوينخىخنذوهخشختنوذخهاوذخعارباعرقتهخوثعخارشعلزذعاهرضتهووقه
@@Xantant yeah.. frfr
@@Xantantthe thing is the Arabic part just gets removed from your comment when google translates it lmao
6:20 You're missing the move I use to sucker wins out of people. The corner grab is in the back of most peoples minds, so X A-1, O B-2, X C-3 can usually sucker someone into dropping an O in one of the remaining corners (A-3 or C-1), which forces you to block at the other corner and give yourself a double win.
But they could draw if they play O on A-2 or B-1 or B-3 or C-2 but this strategy is pretty good i use every time and almost always win
CAN draw is better than WILL draw
There’s no win in tic tac toe, this game will only end up in a tie if you know how to play. This game is boring
There only 1 things you keep in mind, doesn’t matter going first or second. Take the middle or take the corner for first move, and the game will end up tie.
If you don’t follow this rule, the person who take the first move, will win no matter what.
@@Lucifer-fj7mg No actually @The22ndDoctor is 100% right, their trick would fool a large portion of people. I got fooled by it a few times and didn't think about it. It relies on exploiting an instinct in the game.
Yeah how did tic tac toe even get so iconic? I always liked the version where after each player has placed 3 pieces, they'd from now on move one of the pieces they placed of their choice onto an unoccupied space of their choice. Which turns the game more into an endurance test. Who can survive longest without making a mistake.
It's easy to play on paper and most kids didn't notice the strategy for a long enough time to keep it interesting
I think it's down to its simplicity and how easy it is to play. Takes no time to set up and is only played to pass the time. You know how you can lightly scratch your skin to draw a line on it? We used to play tic tac toe that way. Stupid and disgusting, I know.
And I never played the version you mentioned, first time I heard about it really. It really seems more interesting and strategic that way.
All you need to play is a misty car window and a finger, or a stone and a concrete pavement, or a stick and some soft ground, or if you're feeling fancy, paper and pen
This is why I prefer chopsticks. Simple to get into, has depth, no paper required, and house rules means you can keep it interesting.
You should try ultimate/super tic tac toe
I’m proud of myself for essentially mastering tic-tac-toe while still in the single digits. The realization that the corner would almost always result in a fork or tie was amazing until it quickly became boring.
For some reason if you use the center it's more visually obvious to more people the directions you can go but if you choose a corner, it's harder to see what you're doing.
@@jasondashney it's true they usually play where you can not only block but get a fork with one move
ive learned that the single most possible trick and it only works once is to go corner, they go center, you go opposite corner, and they impulsively choose one of the 2 remaining corners which gives you the intuitive move of blocking their win creating a fork. It works more than it should and unless someone is choosing dumb starting moves on purpose its like the best chance ive found. But yeah it only works once then tic tac toe goes back to endless draws
@@jonahbound9257 That’s exactly what I do! The worst part is that once you choose the opposite corner the only possibilities are a win for you or a draw
I started to avoid starting in the center when I realized it actually always ends in a draw.
He is literally gaslighting maths
Math*
@@Klingklangklong No
@@KlingklangklongEngland say maths America says math
@@TestluminousCorrect. math*
Mathematics. There’s an ‘s’
*maths
Instantly subscribed at the end of the video.
I remember in grade 5 our teacher got us to explore the different possible moves in tic-tac-toe and essentially ruined the game by revealing that it is a solved game, nobody wins.
As a kid I figured out the corner was the best start, not because of some mathematical logic, but simply because people always fall for the forks following it.
exactly! I’m frankly surpised the 3 different* games didn’t include a trap where the second X is in the opposite corner (and third is the other available corner, unless the other person has two Os in a free row). People who don’t play often are always confused by that. It’s not an immediate setup to win (thus i think it was filtered out by one of the * conditions), but it’s my favorite trap
@@thesleepydotit's filtered by "block opponents winning move"
E
The corner or the side is always the best. Definitely weird that he chose to only use games that start with the center, as the center always leads to a draw
Yup i was alos that evil person. When a pllayer knows the fork and chooses to go to one of the middle end spaces instead of the center.😥😥
4:59
Is the most deeply fulfilling piece of music I’ve ever heard as evidenced by the fact I’ve been looping this part for the past several minutes
No, no...
This is the true soundtrack for tic tac toe
th-cam.com/video/F7qOV8xonfY/w-d-xo.html
I believe it’s
m.th-cam.com/video/dQw4w9WgXcQ/w-d-xo.html
@@ferranferran6955whatever you say buddy i love the neows and the wows better
make it the soundtrack to an abstract and absurd game about tic-tac-toe
Trully a fire song🔥🔥🔥
If you play x in the top corner and O plays the only viable move of center than you can actually still create a game that does not end in a draw without O not blocking a one move winner. If you place the X marker in the adjacent corner to the start move you can create a fairly successful gambit. This is hunting for O to take either corner because it will force X to take the remaining corner and generate a 2 pronged attack that cannot be blocked. The move for O is a very typical move as players recognize the importance of placing in corners to win the game. I have found massive success with this strategy.
I was thinking the same. I think the video does not consider that move because of the first mistake (the one that wasn't on purpose): it only considers moves that set up for a win as soon as possible. Since placing X in the opposite corner doesn't set up for an instant win, it's not being considered as an option.
i was thinking about that strat the whole video
If your first move is in a corner, and your second move is in an adjacent corner, with your opponents first move being in the middle, it will still end up as a draw. The opponent’s second move would be to go in between the two corners to not lose, which would then make 2 in a row, forcing you to block it which will end up in a draw no matter what
@@Foodiiee01 you're right, I was thinking about the opposite corner. I guess "adjacent corner" in the original comment was a misspeak and was meant to say "opposite corner" - otherwise none of the rest of it makes sense.
@@Foodiiee01 the whole point is if they go in a corner you automatically win
you’re assuming alot about my competency
Underrated comment
I’m a tic tac toe nerd, so I instantly caught that the opening move mistake. One smaller mistake that I noticed, however, is when you said there’s only three games where X starts in a corner and O goes center, and they all result in draws. Here’s why: if X goes in the opposite corner (this may have been pruned from your no-dumb-moves algorithm, but it’s actually a good move) then O goes in either corner (it’s symmetrical), X can take the final corner and cause a fork, winning the game. If O takes the edge, it results in a draw. So it’s actually 5 games! Either way, amazing video, loved this analysis!
The good 159 opening.
Honestly being a nerd of tic-tac-toe would make you the ultimate nerd, as you can literally know everything about the game, not as a hyperbole as a chess grandmaster could say, but literally everything.
God in a bottle, but God nonetheless.
Then again, depending on your definition of "different," putting the O on a corner when there's an X-O-X along the diagonal could count as a dumb move and be considered no different from other dumb moves.
Yes, it is one opening that leaves a possible bad move for your opponent that needs a bit more lookahead to see that it is bad. This shows your "rule" of move to make a possible winning move isn't necessarily a good rule.
@@Trancefreak12 Yes, this is why it is wrong for the video to say moves that do not set you up for getting 3 in a row are dumb and exclude them. There can be a move that does not set up a 3 in a row, but sets up a fork instead, which is in fact a better move than a move that sets up a 3 in a row since it is more hidden and requires your opponent to think 1 step further to find the threat. Just like what this comment is suggesting.
Just like in Chess, a move that sets up a checkmate in 5 is definitely not dumb, but better as compared to a move that threatens to checkmate just in 1, which is very obvious.
I love that a game as simple as tic tac toe has a paradoxical best first move, really goes to show how easy intuition can fail you if not properly supported by mathematics.
I was a bit anoyed, that he didn't continue properly tho! If you start at a Corner and your oponend choses to Play the middle, you've basicaly won If you Play the oposite Corner every time! (Which Shows, playing the "optimal" next move ist Not Always the best Overall!)
@@SA-lh7zl I was thinking also about it. And with that knowledge, the opponent player shouldn't play in the middle after the firstmove, but on the opposit corner (or an edge near the first move) to counter that strategy.
And so, if both players knows about it, noone could win a single game
@@francoisleb4344 You have to play middle move 1 as the second player otherwise you lose if they play the best moves, but the optimal game always goes corner X centre O opposite corner X Edge O Opposite edge X Corner Block O other corner X edge block O last remaining edge X, thus if all players play optimally, there is only 1 game of tic tac toe.
The corner is not the best move. Although you increase your odds of winning from 35% to 48%, you also double your chances of losing, from 7% to 14.8%.
@@SA-lh7zl it will be a draw, because Circle will choose side. X is then in defence.
I am glad you pointed out playing middle first was bad, because I was shaking my head left and right when I heard you say it was the best move, which I am glad you came back to point out was not the best move.
Very interesting to watch. Loved hearing all the explanations.
If you are a somewhat competent tic tac toe player, you can never lose. It takes very little effort to calculate all of the scenarios.
Never lose but if both players are very competent then always a draw
Yes to both comments
And it's not like you need to calculate that much, if you simply play by always blocking the potential forks, you'll never lose (unless you play edge after opponent starts center, but you figure that out instantly)
i once met someone with the same skill lvl of tic-tac-toe as me and every game we played ended in a tie
@@fireballfilmsi think the average person that has played enough tic tac toe will have the same skill as another average person that has played enough tic tac toe.
I figured out Tic Tac Toe is a stupid game through coding as well! Took an app design course in college and we were basically given a 3 month project to make a phone app in a group. Two of us weren't very good with code yet (the class didn't really have any pre-requists) and one of us was really good. Anyway, we decided to make a Tic Tac Toe app where you could play the game against the AI and it would keep track of your win rate. We made two versions of the AI, the "easy mode" and the "hard mode". The easy mode was basically just RNG--the AI just drops its mark in any detected empty spaces. The hard mode...uh...well, that was the job of the guy who knew how to code well and he made the AI actually strategize by prioritizing winning moves and blocking the player's winning moves. And what we ended up doing was making a simulation of Tic Tac Toe you could not win. The best you could ever do was draw. Whoops.
all you need to do now is add a purchasable pro upgrade that gives the AI a small chance to blunder.
@@BenjaminWalburn Pay to win tic tac toe. I like it.
but it is not correct, you (normally) can win against an ai, that only protects and does wins. it is impossible, if you store enough noves upfront
That's basically what I did when I created a Tic Tac Toe website. I had the easy bot play randomly, the hard bot play as optimally as possible so you could never win, and then the medium bot play as optimally as possible except for in one specific edge case that you could exploit every time if you figured it out. I made the medium bot thinking that it was impossible to win against until I happened to stumble on the edge case lol.
A strange game. The only winning move is not to play.
TH-cam has been absolutely insisting for the last week that I watch this video. I don't watch any music related content. I don't know anything about music. I am a nerd however and I found this fascinating, and you answered one of my questions immediately after I had it so way to go, mind reader.
This video got recommended to me so many times in the last few days, I’m glad I finally decided to watch it. :)
"If this kind of obscure nonsense is your cup of tea, congratulations! You're the intended audience for this channel."
I just love seeing a creator with enough respect for their viewers' intelligence to trust them to make their own decision. Not begging for subscriptions, just presenting a solid reason to subscribe and leaving it at that. It's so refreshing to see, that right there earned my subscription more than anything.
It felt like a breath of fresh air, I wish more content creators did the same, basically an ad for their own channel. Now I know this is not a one off content but what this channel does in general. TH-cam tends to recommend one off experimental videos to others so people often don't check the channel after watching a video.
Wholesome Reddit reply r/cuckold
i always go the the library if i like one video, and after watching two more i decide if i want to subscribe,but that only works if you have time to watch more otherwise youtube might never recommend the channel again,the other option would be to subscribe first and then unsubscribe if the next videos arentn interesting when they show up, but you cant do that on desktop because youtube hid the unsubscribe button, oh how i love youtube, such a great platform
Tbh idc if a creator heavily pushes for likes and subscriptions. As long as the video is good, like this one here, then I’ll support the creator regardless.
In the final 3 games, the two top ones are just mirors of each other, so there are only 2 possible ways to end a game of tic tac toe (also the 8 ties in the 14 games were also the same just rotated and mirored)
i can't wait for it to be discovered there are zero ways to end a tic tac toe game
I think it's a mistake?
I would put the 2nd "X" on the other side of the "O" to create a split 🤷🏻♂️
@@endaburns2121 Is tic tac toe ever over anyway? Or does tic tac toe ever start? Is tic tac toe a game? What is tic tac toe?
even if the final layout is the same it's the order of the moves that defines the game. If you color coded the x's and the o's depending on when they where placed the boards would look different
That's only if you consider the final state of the board, and not the order in which it's played. If you watch carefully, the first 5 moves are the same on the top two (as in, aren't mirrored), and the mirroring only starts at the 6th move. That didn't count under his definition of "different", because he only considered when the *whole* game was mirrored, not just half of it
Have to be honest, don't know your channel and this popped up so I decided to give it a go (as chess expert I have some feeling for 'solving' theoretical games), but I burst out in laughter at 6:34. Well done 😂
I was in the middle of commenting that the corner was the best move when you pointed it out.
Here’s why: If O doesn’t play center afterwards, play an adjacent corner to O’s move forcing O to block and giving you an opportunity to make a double. If O plays center, play the opposite corner to move 1. If O plays a corner, play the opposite corner for a double. If O plays edge instead of corner, draw it.
i actually remember trying to solve Tic-Tac-Toe on a flight using just pen and paper and I did eventually figure out the optimal moves for the cross and yes the corner is the optimal starting move
Same only it was when I was bored in my room and I drew out like over a hundred different games on a few pieces of paper and came up with the strategy to always go in the corner first, and then if you aren’t first go in the middle, and then the rest from there is pretty self explanatory and based on what the other person does, and this way, if both people play perfectly, no one can ever win, and that’s when I decide the game was boring and no fun.
I think the corner and the middle is equally good if your point of the game is that your "enemy" wont win
It all depends on your perspective, the corner gives you the best chance of winning but it also gives your opponent a greater chance. If you have the starting move and you chose the center, you will always have control and you can say absolutely that you won't lose the game as long as you apply appropriate strategy. The game will likely end in a tie but you will not lose. Take it from somebody who has never lost a game of tic, tac, toe or X's and O's as we call it.
@@jamesbridgeman6781 if you play intelligently you cannot lose from the corner either
@@NaThingSerious Very fair point, if you have two optimal players then every game will finish in a tie. My strategy of always picking the center encourages ties but it also reduces my opponents chance of winning. You can always claim that you've never lost a game while picking up the occasional win from playing opponents who adapt a less optimal strategy or playing an opponent who tires from the mundane nature of continuous ties and makes a mistake. Psychology can come into any game that humans play but if two robots were playing with optimal strategy there would never be a single winner.
I remember being in 3rd grade and realizing while playing one day with a classmate that middle and corner were strongest. I would often let my friends go first because if you lead them into it correctly you could still win going second. I think it was shortly after that I realized that if you start in the corner then realistically you win or draw every time as well, by then it felt solved to me so I have never really played it since. Love to see that it plays out similar to what I was thinking.
this man is a prodigy.
@@kuruju_vtube or, just hear me out, you are a little slow....? idk, I also came to a similar conclusion a long time ago and have never lost unless I wanted to throw the game
Technically, no one should ever lose tic tac toe because the game is structured in a way where no matter what the other person does, you can always draw. You can't force a win like other sports, so unless someone makes a mistake, there is no winning
@@Xero013 nah that just means you're a proditchywotsit too
It's literally always a draw when I played
Can't believe I am watching probably one of the most random math videos on the internet, and yet I am amazed and is finding this random topic, one of the most interesting ones I've ever heard of.
The sonification hypnotised me and made me press the subscribe button! I love this
Tic-tac-toe is a very simple game to master. But I would love to see more versions where instead of the standard 3x3 format, there are 5x5, 7x7 or more versions, and where the victory conditions are to make a line of 4 pieces in a row or perhaps 5 in larger versions, I tried playing the format 7x7 once and I remember spending hours playing trying to discover the best strategies. It was extremely fun.
A version where each box is another game of tic-tac-toe, ad infinitum
connect 4, connect 5, connect 6, connect 7, connect 8, etc................
@@kevinjamesmartin4307 Although only 2 layers deep, Ultimate Tic Tac Toe is a great variant.
Don't forget 3D and 4D versions.
I had a lot of fun playing 4x4x4x4: that's 16 4x4 grids, all related in 4D space. No analysis, just interesting to find all the winning lines!
So going on how you can start the game in different places, I'd say the "64 games" line is probably the most accurate. The sonification was pretty neat too.
6:03 my corner starting move has been validated!!!
Yeah I used to think about this as well and when you play with someone who is also good at it, there are indeed only three ways the game can go unless one blunders. Great video though, learned from it!
being a musician and majoring in computer engineering I’m really glad I found your channel!
You made a whole video coded a program did extensive math and spoke calmly and intellectually the whole time. “Tic tac to is a ducking stupid game.” Made me laugh out loud thank you hahaha
All that math just to call it a stupid game… gotta respect it
I always despised playing this game, and it's good to have the maths to back it up :P
I remember analyzing this game in second grade. I also figured out that O had exactly one way to win, but the final play possibilities I figured out were simpler. If X takes the center, O must take a corner to win or draw, if O takes a side it will be X's win. If X takes a corner, O can take the center to draw for sure or hope to win, can take a corner with one chance to block X's next move and draw, or can take a side and lose. The first two moves are most critical, after the third the conclusion is set. Most defensive first move strategy: center. Best for winning against new opponents: corner. Only real second move strategy: center if open, otherwise corner. That's was about it. Worked for me.
Mostly agree. Except taking Corner, -> Corner is a fun move that may win but only if you assume your opponent hasn't also solved the game. Otherwise there is no draw and it is instant defeat.
In Corner opening, everything but the center is a loss vs a solved opponent.
When you asked what move do you take for your first, my first thought was the corner. Intuitively, I knew it was better than the center. Nice to see that confirmed
But Center is better. Corner has a very determined endpoint unless your opponent just wants to have fun. Center gives you the highest chance to force your opponent into a loss.
i used to play it with a class mate of mine, i started off winning but and then one of us would only win if the other either didn't pay attention or was too engrossed in their own strategy to notice the other's move. (a.k.a stalemate only won if the other slips up) it was still pretty fun.
Me and a classmate in highschool played tic tac toe every day in our science classes. I think by the end we were like 13 wins for me, 11 wins for him and over 5000 stalemates.
Once both players know how to play perfectly, they can only ever tie.
I misread this as "chess mate" and wondered how a chess friend could possibly fail to draw at tic tac toe
@@NoriMori1992 yup, Tic-tac-toe is biased in the sense that whoever goes first essentially will either win or draw if played optimally. 2nd Player is always behind and whether they lose or draw comes down to their first move, winning is impossible in optimal play.
The center is not infact the best choice, the corner is. It makes it entirely impossible for O to ever win.
EDIT: Damn. Okay. I got 60 seconds later in the video.
*I guessed correctly
same with the center. it is guarranteed that you will lose only if you go corner-adjacent-edge
I think if you go second and pick the center you can still tie the game.
You can still lose with that if the enemy picks the center
@@lukeseaman2994 as an i guess, i can indeed confirm correctly
It’s actually more beneficial to play a disconnected move in some circumstances. For example, using the normal keypad to represent positions, X7 O5 X3 O9 X1 creates a fork, with the following moves being O4 X2 with X winning, or O2 X4 with X winning. Also, the reason for the center being worse is that while you do have more “possible” wins, you can’t set up a fork because any move will force your opponent to block it. A fork requires your moves to be disconnected or else that win will be blocked off, meaning that it can’t be a part of the fork.
Great sound effects!
I noticed the corner superiority a couple years back and it changed my life. If you know the patterns of how other people usually play its almost impossible to lose. Most of the time its a draw, but out of the remaining times its practically always a win
Assuming you play optimally and play as X, any corner opening that doesn't get countered by a middle O is a guaranteed win
It’s not almost impossible. It just is
I prefer middle X opening, as it gives you 2 chances for forks, which are way lese likely to be recognized 2 Turns ahead by the average Joe .
If both players know how to play optimally, the game is always a draw.
@@ekki1993 Which means Center turn 1 or turn 2. Making Center the most powerful move. But sure people can keep wanking corner because if the other guy messes up/decides to have fun, you can always win.
Thank you for all the work you put into this. Those were 7 of the highest quality minutes ive spent on TH-cam in awhile
I hope the creator of this video sees this because this is true. So niche but so cool. v nice python to boot.
Honestly. TH-cam especially shorts has degenerated so much.
This is a hidden gem; a breath of fresh air
This, sir, is exceptional content.
I can tell you have a music comp phd because this sounds like something I would've heard when I was getting my comp bachelor's
In the 3 draws example (6:26), 2 of the draws were mirrors of each other, so in fact there are 2 games of "perfect" tic-tac-toe, and they're both draws.
Things turn out differently if X plays better than perfect by playing as his second move one of the three moves that _don't_ threaten a win.
@@Tzizenorecikr
E
In my last semester of technical school, for my last for my last assignment of microcontroller classes, my friend and I decided to make a wireless multiplayer version of tic-tac-toe. We ended up making it work (after almost getting screwed by the wireless part and needing some critical help) and our teacher was satisfied, but he said it was a bit of a shame that the game we chose ended up being so simple in terms of strategy and said that he should have suggested rock paper scissors.
A little while later, after we returned all the components we borrowed, I showed him the RPS25 (rock paper scissors with 22 additional types) matchup chart as a joke and the three of us realized that this game was completely doable, and perhaps even easier to code the communication packets for. He said that he'd assign the smartest student in his next microcontrollers class to make that game.
I weep for the poor person who had to program 625 different matchups and draw 25 different symbols in a 84x48 pixel screen.
E
Be smart by not being smart
Was very cool from you to do this
Never seen your vids, hadn't payed attention to more than the title.
Watching you go through game theory, logic, python, math...
Then you say, "Since this is usually a music channel..."
I literally looked away from the screen, with a WTF expression to the point my wife noticed, despite suffering the EXACT Same reaction herself.
Subscribed before finishing the rest of the video.
There is actually a little mistake when he talks about the corner game. When O plays middle you can play opposite corner and still have a way to win, if O doesn’t play side, and force a defence from x. There may be other winning games that were excluded because of the “make a win next move” rule. But overall a very interesting and thorough video👍
That's how I taught my kids. Corner start, Then opposite corner. This gives you a forced win or draw. Now they beat all their friends and other adults that they swindle into playing.
@@42medwardsSame for middle start.
If the opponent goes for the edge, you win. If they Go for the corner, Go opposite corner and you get the Same Situation.
Except during this explanation he also said that the opponent (O) would also move to prevent losing as well. So if they are "smart" like he explains halfway through this video, you'd also realize that the opponent WOULD play a side to prevent that forced win, forcing a draw.
So no, it's not a mistake.
thats dependant on the opponent not defending, there is no mistake.
Was gonna say this, center first move is instantly defended by playing any corner and then just stoping the 3 in line for opponent and it's a draw. Corner first is defended by playing center and then any side (not corner), from there just stop opponent from doing the 3 line (or complete your own if he doesn't stop it) and it's a draw.
There are literally 2 games of tic tac toe and they're both draws. Sadly, he missed the best play for X in the video, despite saying "he discarded those that made no sense".
4:42 Actually, the best squares to start are the corner ones. In a corner square, unless the O player goes to the center, it's a certain win for X, making it 7 ways of wining.
Yes, I commented before finishing the video 🤦♂
@@FaneBenMezdyou can delete comments I think
@@JeffDeff-hp3el I know but I don't want to. I own my fails
Technically speaking since tic tac toe is a solved game, you cannot make a mistake on the opening move because there is an optimal way to force a draw regardless if the game starts with corner, center or edge.
@@FaneBenMezd based
learned this at a jack astors table when i was 14 drawing and playing myself to reach conclusions of how to either draw or win by playing the first move
when I learned about the strat where you get 3 of the 4 corners, it was pretty obvious which was the best starting move, heck you can win in 4 moves with that all the time
Yes, it's really important in group theory in general to specify what you mean by "different", which implicitly means you have to specify what you mean by "same".
For example, on a clock, 1 and 13 are "the same", even though 1 and 13 are different numbers.
Modulus has entered the chat
This type of deep analysis of something ubiquitous that never gets thought about deeply is what i love. Jan misali would love this video.
Who’s that?
@@chicagotypewriter2094 you can find a similar overanalysis of Hangman, the letter W, or regular polyhedra from that creator. Love videos like these.
@@chicagotypewriter2094 Another TH-camr who makes videos that are pretty similar to this one. There's one on the game Hangman for instance.
@@chicagotypewriter2094 they're another youtuber :) they make mostly cool videos about linguistics and conlangs but also some other things.
We used to do tic-tac-toe championships when in elementary school, against the average player the best approach was to start on the corner, but when playing against the top ones it was more of a mind game, so we would change the starting position pretty often, until the opponent make a mistake that would lead to a win.
I felt like a total badass when I figured out all the outcomes and how to never lose and have the maximum chance of winning as a kid. It seems so simplistic now looking back.
E
But that video is wrong. Starting in the center isn't the best move.
Edit: I stopped watching when he said the best start is center because I thought he didn't know what he's talking about.
@@tonymouannes I dunno. I didn't watch it in it's entirety, but yes, corner is the correct first move for the first player. If the second player is playing against someone who knows how to play the best possible moves, there is no way to win, therefore you need to force a draw by starting center middle, then taking a center side on the second move. So for the second player, the very middle is the best first move. Of course, if both players know the best moves, you will have an endless stalemate unless someone accidentally or deliberately screws up.
@@tonymouannes5:55 he said that
@goodolmemo I went back to the video after reading your reply. I stopped when he said the best start is center because that made it clear he didn't know enough about the game.
The best response to O going middle if you go corner is the opposite corner. It doesn’t threaten anything directly, but it leaves a small chance for a fork on your next turn.
Ikr
That's the only strategy possible in the game: going for a 3 corner trap. There are other possible traps, but it's impossible to plan for them. It's also impossible for O to plan the 3 corners trap, as it requires X to be very inexperienced.
cool video, kinda figured this out as a kid and after that only would play super tictactoe, where you have a grid made up of 9 tictacotoe boards. And you can take your turn in any grid and its board.
Makes the game MUCH more fun and not just follow the blind set of rules for at least a draw.
6:35 No... I've never listened so attentively and learnt so much. Not even at school
As a expert in playing the game, you'll always draw no matter what (if you and the opponent are competent, and have play many games before)
It's just about who screws up first, or just can't be bothered anymore
It's kinda funny seeing two people play for dozens of minutes, no one wanting to lose, yet only being able to achieve a draw
It's more about memorising positions, rather than anything else
if you start in the corner and your opponent doesn’t go in the center you win by default. and it’s really hard to see why.
If you start in the corner, opponent has to go middle to draw.
If you start in the middle, opponent has to go corner to draw.
It's not hard to remember how to force draws.
which is why i play ultimate tic tac toe instead
An expert???? 😂
Honestly I became an expert at tic tac toe just because I was drawing all boards that made sense to me when I was bored (which really isn't a lot of them as shown in this video but more than just what was shown)
And this was how I concluded that corner was a better move because it give your opponent more messing up opportunity, while center is basically a guaranted draw if your opponent knows the basics.
If you knows the basic positions any game is a draw, just have to know which moves are traps that you could fall into
You just explained what I never could verbalize as a kid. I thought ahead and visualized the board easily and it always seemed so repetitive. At least on Hollywood Squares - where at least when I was growing up in the 1970s the contestants did almost always start at the corner square for that reason you stated - someone could get an answer wrong and it would go to the other side. Plus Paul Lynde and some of the others were quite funny.
1:47 not me hella excited to actually hear something from my discrete maths course
I recently tried to make an ai-very-good-but-not-minimax tic-tac-toe game, and while doing my research I found this video, there was plenty of stuff I already knew, but it helped me out to perfect the code, thanks bud
I just found your channel and it feels almost like fate. I am currently modelling solar energy production using python for part of a thesis and I was struck by how random, yet orderly the solar radiation levels striking the planet are throughout the year. I was wondering how I would go about representing this through sound and didn't know where to start, and then this video randomly pops up on my feed. Love the content, and appreciate the effort that has went into the videos.
not you solving your SOLAR RADIATION presentation problem bc of a random youtube tictactoe video, this is so fucking cool
I love ur comment and the reply too
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This concept actually sounds really cool and I kinda want to know more about what you learn from it. (Both the orderliness of solar radiation and experiments with sound).
Will hopefully be able to respond in a few weeks with what I put together, it's exciting not knowing if it will sound awful or terrible 😂@@faolan2174
I appreciate you talking about sonification. As somebody who has been a part of a project dedicated to making astronomy accessible through turning data into sound I’m very impressed with your system. Well done!
That sounds so interesting. Would you elaborate how that would actually work ? I'd love to know a little bit about it.
In the specific system we were designing there was a differentiation between pitch, volume and stereo sound location which when played in its entirety would allow you to scan an image with your ears. It was a very interesting concept and I wish we could’ve continued more work with the sonification component, unfortunately funding ran out before it was able to see its full potential but it was an interesting thing to work on, it was through a project called IDATA, a national science foundation funded project working on accessibility for astronomy for people with visual impairments.
This is quality TH-cam. Well done.
I was trying to explain this to my friends last year. Now I finally can just show them a video
Its going to be hard to be successful in TH-cam when a channel like yours only has 36.1k subscribers... Well done! This was really a fun watch and very informative.
Being a tic-tac-toe nerd, I caught the mistake! That feels good. I'm doing a project right now to figure out the exact surreal number value of the starting position of a tic-tac-toe board, and this is a very helpful video. I knew about the paring down to equivalence classes, but having somebody else generate all the interesting games and put them on screen is very helpful. (I'm mostly just being lazy).
will you be sharing this project with us?
A tic-tac-toe nerd, you say? Check out gomoku and renju, both games are pretty much "five-in-a-row but balanced"
I just realized that younger me played tic tac toe too much as a kid. I was even questioning why corner is not the best starting place at first, but then it was corrected, and though I didn't realize until today that blocking corner move with center move creates a draw unless there is a miss, I always do that in reflex.
The 1h long of tic tac toe music video I've been looking for all my life
This is a great video. An obscure topic that I never would have thought of myself presented in a way that allowed me to find it fascinating, and feel like I've learned something. Nice!
Of the 3 games 2 are mirror images of each other that weren’t properly removed by your code. This is also where the optimization works against you because the best move is actually the opposite corner, it will require your opponent to actually think which they definitely don’t want to do during a game of tic tac toe and gives you a chance at winning by not letting them mindlessly block you.
I played 16 games of Tic-Tac-Toe against a friend in class and won 8 of them, I then explained the reasonable ways a game can proceed all based off findings I made in a class when I was 7-8, pretty entertaining classes
I found that out with a class mate when we were bored in class. we played like 600 rounds of tic tac toe and just after a few rounds we noticed the strategy behind the game and how to counter each other, leading to like 50 wins for one person, 51 wins for the other and roughly 500 ties. it was a lot of stupid fun xD
I cannot believe this channel explained this simple of a topic in a fully fleshed out and enjoyable way.
Just found this channel, this is super cool. I write c# code for a living and dabble in python in my free time, but I also grew up with all kinds of musical instruments as my dad was a k12 band director. I feel like this content was tailor made for me. Definitely subscribing.
can you multiple the factorials of the moves removing the alternating moves and if so does it "just work" or is it provable
I love this video so much
I only ever won at tic tac toe when I figured out through experimenting by myself that the corner was the best move, and played against people who weren't expecting it. It throws some people off the first time for some reason, and you can win a surprising number of times if you do it and also manage to find somebody to play tic tac toe with you.
It throws people off because the corner has 3 sides blocked off, so it appears you should have the worst possible odds of winning if you take it at face value and in turn they don't take your as seriously.
Fantastic analysis. I only got as far as symmetrical board positions before you started surprising me. And then you just kept DOING it.
Unbelievable ... this video made its job and just earned you a new sub
The thing with corner is that if you place your move at corner first, then there's nothing your opponent can do unless he places in centre which results in tie. No matter where you opponent places but not center when you've palced in the corner first, you are going to win. You cna try it yourself.
I made a TTT program on the Commodore 64 in Basic back in the 1980s. It used rotational and mirror symmetry to greatly reduce the possible moves it considered. You couldn’t beat it as either player, but sometimes it would beat people because it would sometimes start in the corner and setup a fork. You can’t win at TTT by force, you can only lose. If you don’t make any mistakes you never lose. It is very simple and stupid. I moved on to Chess. Now that is an insanely deep game.
Ok, I know this is dumb considering that chess is basically indefinite to us feeble humans, but doesn't it face the same problems in that if you never make mistakes you never lose?
@@lokajithpremkumar691you can setup complex strategies in chess of 10+ moves. Also chess allows for a lot more choices. Even the best chess players lose sometimes. An experiences tic-tac-toe player never loses.
@@lokajithpremkumar691 Not a dumb question. That may be the case, but Chess is so deep that I don’t think we can know the answer to that. It’s not a “solved” game. That’s why we have opening “theory”. The moves considered best in different openings change. The “mistakes” can be so subtle, slightly less than perfect, that it can be difficult to pinpoint where things went off the rails. The position can get slowly worse until it is untenable. Even computers, as good as they have become, don’t have it all figured out. Also, much depends on the players, their styles, personalities, histories, etc. A mistake against one player might be a great move against another. I was playing over the board locally last year and someone quickly beat someone using a particular opening. I had next game. He tried the same opening against me and I quickly beat him. So is the opening good or bad/ a mistake? Depends.
Thanks for doing this video! I did a similar analysis when I was around 10 or 12 years old (early 90s) and came up with the same 64 games if the computer plays the optimal move organizing as you did the corner, edge, and center using mirroring and rotation. I looked at it as you are forcing the limitations through your choice so instead of 9! you get 1 * 3 * 1 * 3 * 1 * 3 * 1 * 3 * 1 = 81 where the 1s are you picking your best move and the 3s are the opponent picking from corner, edge, and center, but that is reduced further by games ending early or options not being available in certain branches. To start my analysis I turned the first 1 into a three as I didn't know which (corner, edge, or center) would be the best at the time, but even doing this, it brought the number of possible games down to a manageable number (243) as at the time I was limited to doing my analysis on paper. Quite a few pages in I had the full list of games always forcing a win or a tie (after eliminating the choices that led to a forced loss) and that gave me the 64 unique games when playing optimally.
I postulate that a similar analysis could be done for chess, but that it might not result in a finite set of all wins and draws. In fact, many games would likely end up in a draw from looping moves. The problem with chess is with how the number of games grows exponentially from the vast number of possible moves from each state, and while some reduction is possible in the analysis, it is still a large enough set that a "winning" (defined as winning or forcing a draw) map of moves is not possible in a reasonable time or memory space requirement. Even so, the current chess ai abilities are very impressive just from looking a handful of moves ahead using various point systems and other rules.
Thank you for this.
Just last week I happened to write a script in JS to calculate how many unique end conditions there are in Tic-Tac-Toe. I accounted for symmetry, and stopping when the game is won, but didn't apply any player strategy. I also didn't care about what turns were taken to get to the end, just the final board itself, so duplicate routes would be ignored.
The number I came up with was 138 total boards, with 91 wins for X and 44 wins for O. And there were only 3 draws, which I thought was surprising since most games end in a draw. However, watching your video, I see that most draw conditions are symmetrical. For example, at 5:34 all eight draw boards are the same symmetrically. And at 6:25, two of the boards are the same, and the third is different. And those are the 3 unique draw boards I found as well.
Edit: Just watched your follow up video, and you list out the unique game states on each turn similar to what my script does. My numbers match yours up to turn 5, when the first win is possible. However, I excluded winning boards from future turns, so my numbers for turns 6-9 are a little lower: 204, 153, 57, and 15.
I live how you did all this hassle to conclude what we all knew already about Tic Tac Toe. It is a beautiful demonstration.
I was about to say that this video is great but you should never open in the center ... but thankfully watched the rest of the video first.
I personally prefer corner start as X but center start is generally more solid- It's just that less people know corner start and that somehow has made me win a lot of tic tac toe games
Corner start looks more solid, but it isn't. If you start in the corner, you might have to play defensively for the rest of the game. By starting in the corner you can play offensively and O will lose if they don't play very specific moves. Starting in the middle is more likely to end in a draw. Because players tend to favor the corner over the side and with a middle start you want O to go to the side to win. With X in the corner, O will lose if they go in a corner i their first 2 moves (O needs to go center and then side or it's game over).
No, the corner start is actually just better. You win by force if your opponent does not play in the middle, and even if they do there is a chance to win.
I know how to play to win or draw any position that it is possible to respective, tic tac toe has very limited game states. I’m just saying as x it’s easier to confuse o with corner start
So based on the fact that 3:43 is wrong, as addressed by your footnote at 3:43, how many games are there?
This is the weirdest channel ive ever come across and i bloody love it!
A very philosophical analysis, your tools and execution are fascinating. Subbed 👍
You forgot the G# in the last square at 6:43, but as a computer science / classical musician I’m glad I found this unironically instructive video
can confirm from playing against the different difficulties of the computer whilst knowing how to never lose, more or less every single game is decided within the first 2 or 3 moves, and after that theres very few outcomes
if you start at a corner or an edge and the second move isn´t the center, you´ll always win.
But, if the second move is the center, you have to go to opposite corner to have a chance to win (if you had chosen the corner), and a another edge if you initial movement was the edge
I know I should probably do some sort of self-promotion with this pinned comment, but it has come to my attention that someone has mashed up my tic-tac-toe music with War Games, and I thought you all should know: th-cam.com/video/AoIpWrfsRRE/w-d-xo.html (P.S. Check the video description for the self-promotion)
Lmao just clicked on the video and found this comment.
1 min ago
@@GurkenbauerTimsame
5 mins ago? Really
didnt ask
when I was KID I broke tick tack toe down to I put my x in the middle and if you put it in the corner its a tie, if you put it anywhere else I win. Its a 2 game option for me.
There are a lot of lines where you set up a "fork" as you called it and therefore don't make a move that directly sets you up for three in a row. At 3:34 for example you could actually go top right to set up a fork with either the middle or the bottom left in your next move (in this case you'd lose though because your opponent gets a "fork" earlier)
2:41 if you are avoiding the win it is toc tic tæ where a win is a loss and a tie is 2 losses. Usually paired with some punishment per loss.
5:15 THE BEST MUSIC EVER