Move first, and become unbeatable: Strategy study of different Tic-tac-toe

TL;DR

This paper investigates various types of tic-tac-toe to identify winning or unbeatable strategies for the first player, emphasizing the importance of move order in determining game outcomes.

Contribution

It introduces a strategic analysis of different tic-tac-toe variants, focusing on first-move advantages and unbeatable strategies.

Findings

First-move advantage in certain tic-tac-toe variants

Identification of unbeatable strategies for the first player

Analysis of how move order affects game outcomes

Abstract

The main challenge of combinatorial game theory is to handle combinatorial chaos, if one player knows the strategy better than his opponent, he is able to determine the exact results of a game. If both players are qualified competitor, the result usually depends on the order when they take turns, which however, may not be determined by a player casually. So, this research studied different kinds of tic-tac-toe, assuming that a player always moves first, tried to figure out the winning or unbeatable strategy for the first player in different kinds of tic-tac-toe. It is titled "Move first, and become unbeatable", which also reflects the philosophy in life.