Talk:832: Tic-Tac-Toe

Explain xkcd: It's 'cause you're dumb.
Revision as of 08:20, 16 August 2014 by Plm-qaz snr (talk | contribs) (Of course it references War Games)
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This is all wrong. The second move for X, unless O blocked it already, or started off in the centre should be the lower right corner. That way, O will use the centre to block, and then X goes in a third corner, thus sealing the game.76.29.225.28 04:59, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

Can you tell which situation you mean? If X starts at 7 and O does not go to 5, then X forces a win with the described tactic. There might be other ways to win, but I don't think that matters. --Chtz (talk) 09:11, 23 July 2013 (UTC)
Playing as X, you start in the upper left corner. O plays in any square other than the lower right corner (They might be able to block if they play the centre, depending on whether they anticipate this move). Then, when O blocks the centre, you play the upper right or lower left corner, depending on where O has played before, thus making it impossible to block because they only get one move. The only time this ever fails is when O knows what X is doing after the first move.76.29.225.28 19:57, 23 July 2013 (UTC)
If it goes X7, O5, X3, then O must play anywhere but in a corner next (result is symmetric) X has to block and O can hold a draw. Just see the Map for O part. --Chtz (talk) 21:40, 23 July 2013 (UTC)
I don't know the numbers for the squares. There are only nine of them. Could we just refer to them by their positions relative to the rest of the board?76.29.225.28 21:44, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

There is an error in the drawing when starting with (numpad coordinates) X7, O9, X1, O4, X3: Both O5 and O6 have the same picture. --Chtz (talk) 09:11, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

Tic-Tac-Toe is just a stupid simple game, Randall jokes about that. As the title text says "...waiting for your opponent to make a mistake". And the picture is just a part of this joke.--Dgbrt (talk) 22:04, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

I just don't want to analyze both maps, but I had a college assignment that made me look into Tic Tac Toe strategy, and I think that the explanation should start with "Each map shows every possible combination of moves which will result in that side not losing.". 108.162.212.206 23:40, 14 January 2014 (UTC)

The quote from War Games is "The only way to win is not to play", and it refers to the game Global Thermonuclear War, not Tic-Tac-Toe (although that was played earlier in the movie). I don't think the title text was based on this quote, but is only coincidentally similar. 108.162.249.215 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

With all due respect, I think the probability that the title text does not reference the movie War Games is so low as to be effectively zero. BTW the whole premise of the resolution of the movie (spoiler alert) is that by playing Tic-Tac-Toe the AI learns the futility of unwinnable 'games'. It then applies this learning to the very real scenarios of global thermonuclear war and, realising the futility, stops. Plm-qaz snr (talk) 08:20, 16 August 2014 (UTC)