You can’t tie in a 3D noughts and crosses

I loved this post on the Futility Closet last month: With best play on both sides, conventional tic-tac-toe (noughts and crosses) is always a draw. Played in three dimensions, though, in a 3×3×3 cube, it’s always a win for whichever player manages to take the central cell. In fact, a draw is impossible — there’s no way to fill the “board” with 14 crosses and 13 noughts without completing one or more winning paths. One of my favourite games in the Windows Entertainment Pack series was TicTactics, which was a version of the game split across four planes. I expect you could tie in that? I might need to break out the disks out to check. By Ruben Schade in Sydney, 2026-11-08.

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