Tic-tac-toe
game for two players played on a 3x3 board or a sheet of paper
Tic-tac-toe (American English), noughts and crosses (Commonwealth English), or Xs and Os (Canadian or Irish English) is a paper-and-pencil game for two players who take turns marking the spaces in a three-by-three grid, one with Xs and the other with Os. A player wins when they mark all three spaces of a row, column, or diagonal of the grid, whereupon they traditionally draw a line through those three marks to indicate the win. It is a solved game, with a forced draw assuming best play from both players.
Names
In American English, the game is known as "tic-tac-toe". It may also be spelled "tick-tack-toe", "tick-tat-toe", or "tit-tat-toe".
In Commonwealth English (particularly British, South African, Indian, Australian, and New Zealand English), the game is known as "noughts and crosses", alternatively spelled "naughts and crosses". This name derives from the shape of the marks in the game (i.e the X and O); "nought" is another name for the number zero, while "cross" refers to the X shape.
Sometimes, tic-tac-toe (where players keep adding "pieces") and three men's morris (where pieces start to move after a certain number have been placed) are confused with each other.
Gameplay
Tic-tac-toe is played on a three-by-three grid by two players, who alternately place the marks X and O in one of the nine spaces in the grid.
In the following example, the first player (X) wins the game in seven steps:
There is no universally agreed rule as to who plays first, but in this article the convention that X plays first is used.
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