Ultimate Tic Tac Toe Winning Strategy

The winning strategy is described in this post

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[Corniel]

When a tiny board is won, you are not allowed to play there again, so this statement is false.

[calebmon]

yes in a fundamentally broken version of the game where the second player can get trapped in the center for 8 turns (even though that isn't how it works in any version I've ever played) yes there is a winning strategy. similarly in chess if you remove all pieces but a king on the black players side there is also a winning strategy too.

[bowserjratk]

If a player is sent to a board which is already won by someone, isn't that player allowed to go to any board? Or is this another variation on the rules?

[charalampost]

This is wrong. The rules of Ultimate tic tac toe dictate that when a player wins a small tic tac toe by putting three Xs or Os in a row then he claims that square and no other symbols may be put in that square. So in your example when the O player makes a tic tac toe in the central big square at 0:49 then he wins that big square and nobody can play there any more. If you have to play there you choose any other place instead.

[fluttersheep]

But nobody plays UTT with these rules.

[tangerian]

the rules I play by is that if you send a player to a grid that has already been claimed, regardless if there is still space left in it, they get full range of the board. Now, what is the strategy there?

[rtdgaming]

Unfortunately, this set of rules is flawed, slowing this always win strategy.

[KingSorin]

For the purposes of explaining, I'm going to give the squares co-ordinates like a chessboard (rows are denoted by numbers from 1-9 with the bottom row being a 1, and columns are denoted A-I with A being far left)
At 1:12, O should have played B5, to let X go anywhere. The video says when this happens, X should go to G5 to send O back to the middle-left square. Now O can play C5 to break the lock. (They can't be sent back to the middle-left from that move.)
Not sure if they have a chance of winning from that situation, but this strategy is over-simplified if the O player knows what they're doing.

[SArthur]

Yea... Except, at the very end, 0 wins first...

[fayaz]

before u did a 3-in-a-row in the middle square O had already done 1 in the middle-left, middle-right and the middle

[zekeh]

You're playing by the wrong rules.(check coolmath)

[helioncardoso]

to have more fun I prefer the rules in which when a player is sent to a small board that has been won, then the player is not allowed to play there. Actually, None of the players are allowed to play in a small board since it is won. To avoid ties I also consider those Statements:
-A player wins if it scores three boards in a row (horizontally, vertically or diagonally)
- If the bigger board is filled and there is no three scores in a row from a single player, but there is a small board in a tie, then the tied small board account a score for both player. If both can make a row with this Statement, then it is definitily a tie.
- A player can also win using a tied small board, but a complete row of won small board has preference, so that if in the middle of the game a tied small board makes for each player a suppost winning row, than the game must continue until there is more of those rows for one of the players (like 2 for one and 1 for the other) or until a player wins somehow else, like making a regular complete row of won small boards.

[freenarative]

Except... house rules. There are rules such as "if sent to a board you can't play on you get a free play." or "If you play a board and claim it you get a free play" or "if you are forced into a box that causes you to do a 3 in a line you clainm that board and then must p[lay another bo."
Or " if you win you claim another square"

If ANY of these rules come into play your tic tacs are useless.

[KelsonArwhi]

Not much point in playing with this ruleset as the game is beyond broken then.
Seems the ruleset where a section is off limits once won is more balanced.

Interested in the Ultimate Reversi game being developed off the UTT concept. That looks like a blast

[gringusgaming]

I developed a similar strategy for a variant where playing in a square that has been won on the larger board gives the next player the ability to place an x or o anywhere on the board... interesting

[rapidreaders]

Didn't 'O' win at 2:37 ?

[marksmith]

You stuffed up- your demonstration shows O winning before X- the middle row.

[XXsconicXX]

Even with your flawed understanding of the rules, O would still win by 2:28.
I don't think you put much thought into this.

[khmarler]

This doesn’t work. Every time someone has explained the rules to me—once a square gets a three in a row the square is closed and the person instead gets a chance of playing in any open spot.

[fritzzz]

Well this only works if it is allowed to make a move on already finished boards. According to the standard rules, O owuld be allowed to move on any other board as soon as the middle one is finished, and forbidden to make more moves on the center board.