Re: [OT] Play tic-tac-toe using e-Letters or i-Letters!

Doesn't matter, I believe...

BTW, do you wanna to prove your claim? :)

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If I remember correctly, there are more ways of winning if you start in the corner (the proof is simply by counting games) and, since you can't be forced to lose if you start there, you could argue that you might as well do that.

If you start in the middle there are fewer games that you can win, but it's also easier to see that you can't be forced to loose and I suspect it's that which leads people to chose the middle.

By the way, why the cross post to alt.conspiracy? Do you want to be taken to be a crank?

Isn't this game always end in a draw?

Unless, one doesn't know this game, like the computer in the movie WarGames?

Do you wanna lo>

"Mr." Man-wai Chang is nothing more than an annoying troll, with an appropriate E-mail address >:-} ...Jim Thompson

If no one makes a mistake the game will always end in a draw.

There are certain ways to start off that may let you win if the other player does not know the game very well.

Playing the game against people is very different from playing it against a computer. You won't fool a well-written program, but people can be suckered into losing. And the first rule of suckering people is to start in a corner. If you start in the middle, they'll pretty well know how to force a draw. But if you start in a corner, they're less likely to correctly select a safe move. Of course it's impossible to demonstrate this over Usenet, especially to programmers, because nobody is going to post a move without analysing it to death first. But in the real world, people don't do that. They know it's a forced draw, they assume they can't lose, and they play carelessly --- and then they don't understand why they lost.

I worked out every possible move when I was a kid.

If your first move is in the center, the other player can force a draw no matter where his second move is.

If your first move is in the corner, the other player can force a draw if his second move is in the center, but if his second move is anywhere else you can force a win.

He is.

Because you only believe in victory and death? You believe all games have winners and losers?

There is no draw nor peace? ;)

That depends on how the player program was written. Tic-tac-toe does NOT have too many combinations and matrix of moves. Putting them all in a database, and the computer program could just follow the pattern to make a draw.

So it's theoretically possible to "personalize" the program so that it is playing like a real human.

Wanna prove this with a few games over messages? :)

Perhaps you don't read too well, but it has already been explained that it is futile to attempt to demonstrate the human psychology of the game over Usenet, especially in a technical group, where people will inevitably analyse the state of the game before every article they post. People /don't/ do this when playing the game face-to-face.

If an electronic gaming device had firmware, was it still electronics? :)

There is this neat mapping of a tic-tac toe, with the a magic square (rows/ columns/ diagonals add to 15) and a row of numbers from one to nine. The goal of the number line is to pick numbers alternatively and be the first to have three number that add to 15. I think it was in a Martin Gardener book.

George h.

I just tried to play against myself a few times. I don't see how it can work. To win you have to place the third number of a set, but you can only do that if your opponent places the second number of that set. You both have to try to place numbers that can form a set, so you must place a second number with the intention of adding a third, but then you enable your opponent to place the third number. Am I misunderstanding how the game is played?

There is a factor that's totally irrelevant to the rules of the game: psychology if not psychiatry.

Imagine a T.T.T. game played between a King/Queen and one of his/her employee. Should the employee win? :)

OK found this on the web... (easier than trying to write it myself.)

It's really just a game of tic tac toe in a different guise. (You have to hold the picture of the magic square in your head as you play.)

George H.

That makes sense, but it's no more winable than tic tac toe.

I think you could modify tic tac toe to be winable if each player is limited to 4 squares, and if he has to erase one before choosing another.

Each player compiles their own set which cannot contain numbers chosen by the other player. the winner is the first who has a set which has a subset with three elements that add to 15. By numbering a tic-tac-toe board as a magic square this game translates directly to tic-tac-toe