Talk:Ultimate tic-tac-toe

Wrong description
I think, in the early part of the description, where it keeps referring to the top-left, it really means top-right? In both the illustration and the dialog. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tsanders2753 (talk • contribs) 13:15, 24 October 2016 (UTC)
 * You're completely right, I'll fix that. Ofek Gila (talk) 14:02, 24 October 2016 (UTC)

Confusing image
The images used to illustrate the gameplay seem a little confusing for having the large O and Xs replacing the games underneath them. If you were playing on a computer or were erasing games as played, that would make sense, but I think the reader will be expecting to see a game as played with pen and paper, and will read a big "X" as meaning that the local game was never played and the player just drew a big X instead.

Can we get a more representative image of a game, where the local games are still visible beneath the global markers? (I've cut the article down to just two images, as I think this is all that's really needed to get the gameplay across; the text description does a perfectly good job of explaining the gameplay.) --McGeddon (talk) 20:24, 11 December 2016 (UTC)


 * Sure, I'll work on getting that done, expect that up within the next week! Ofek Gila (talk) 20:35, 11 December 2016 (UTC)


 * Thanks. Maybe shading each global square to pink or light-blue would be the way to go here? (And change the other remaining example image to use a non-pink highlight.) --McGeddon (talk) 20:53, 11 December 2016 (UTC)


 * I feel like when played with a pencil and paper, you do kinda draw the large circle or x on top of the smaller ones. What do you think? Ofek Gila (talk) 21:05, 11 December 2016 (UTC)


 * Sure, sounds good. --McGeddon (talk) 15:00, 12 December 2016 (UTC)


 * Alright, uploaded an updated image—as promised by the end of the week :D Ofek Gila (talk) 21:56, 14 December 2016 (UTC)


 * Looks great. So if I'm reading that correctly, the most recent move was O in the middle-left square of the top-middle grid, forcing X to play in the middle-left grid? --McGeddon (talk) 22:11, 14 December 2016 (UTC)


 * Haha I completely forgot, but it's the only possible previous move, so you must be right! Thanks again for identifying a possible problem and helping me with the solution! Ofek Gila (talk) 22:28, 14 December 2016 (UTC)

References don't support claims
Apologies if I don't have Talk style correct. This is my first ever comment on Wikipedia. Reference 1 seems irrelevant to the definition of Ultimate Tic Tac Toe. Seems like the first sentence should be referenced by 2 which appears to be the most popular definition of the game. In the second sentence "challenge for computers" is referenced with 2 but that article doesn't address the computational difficulty of the game. Reference 3 only discusses traditional tic tac toe. Reference 4 also does not discuss ultimate tic tac toe. I did some searching but couldn't find any good references for the current state of ultimate tic tac toe AI. Lostupdate (talk) 17:30, 26 December 2016 (UTC)


 * Hello and welcome to Wikipedia! Thanks so much for your contribution! Yeah, there seems to have been a mix-up with the first reference there, I believe it was originally pointing towards the second reference—although it also contains a complete explanation of the rules in the introduction. Nonetheless, I'll reference them both. You're completely right about the "challenge for computers" statement, I missed another citation. Reference 3 was only meant to explain the first part of the sentence, not the second. Looks like I missed a citation there too. Reference 4 explains what the Monte Carlo tree-search algorithm is good for, which, given reference 1 and a reference I forgot to include, is the best tactic. As you might be able to see, this is my first Wikipedia article, and I really appreciate your help. I'll clean it up a bit and let you know when the changes are made. Thanks! Ofek Gila (talk) 20:31, 26 December 2016 (UTC)


 * Alright, I published a fix to the references. Please reply if there is anything that is still not perfect, and again, thanks so much for your help! Ofek Gila (talk) 20:48, 26 December 2016 (UTC)

"Tic-tac-tic-tac-toe-toe" name for game
Hey, yesterday the name "tic-tic-tac-tac-toe-toe" was added (for which I added a citation needed), and then it was replaced to "tic-tac-tic-tac-toe-toe". A quick google search revealed the following results for all the names of Ultimate Tic-Tac-Toe (in double quotes):

"Ultimate Tic-Tac-Toe" -> ~50,000 hits "Super Tic-Tac-Toe"   -> ~10,000 hits "Meta Tic-Tac-Toe"    -> ~5,000  hits

And now (what was recently added): "Tic-Tac-Tic-Tac-Toe-Toe" -> 8 hits

A citation was added to a github page that calls it by that name (one of the 8 Google results), which is incidentally the only one of the 8 results (other than this Wikipedia page), that even referred to this game. Furthermore, all the other names were used in scholarly articles and research papers, when this name is clearly unknown to the public.

Anyways, I'm planning on removing this new name in about a week, please let me know if anyone has objections. Ofek Gila (talk) 18:13, 2 May 2018 (UTC)

Does Ultimate Tic Tac Toe have a winning strategy?
The final line of the introduction states "It was shown in 2020 that the game admits a winning strategy for the first player to move, meaning that the first player to move can always win assuming perfect play" and references the paper https://arxiv.org/abs/2006.02353v2.

Looking at this paper though, they are showing this for a different rule set than the one presented here. In particular in their rule set players can be sent to local boards that have already been won (Provided there is still space to play on them). Unless someone knows of a different reference, I think we should remove the last line of the introduction. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.148.112.201 (talk) 14:16, 16 August 2020 (UTC)

House rules
Some people play by house rules, I know this because thats how I was taught to play it. Example: Instead of a winning square being unusable, we played by a rule where we used a square, even if won, until it was full or could not get sent to. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 0w0 catt0s (talk • contribs) 19:52, 8 September 2020 (UTC)

What happens when Ties happen in sub-boards?
I've developed a Tic-Tac-Toe game, not unlike Ultimate Tic-Tac-Toe, but with even more levels of sub-boards. With this, I've had to make a 'third player' of sorts, called an Obstruction, so when a Tie occurs in my version of Tic-Tac-Toe, it becomes an Obstruction for its' parent board.

Obstructions are technically not players (yet), so they become generated by a tie and only win the main game by filling the board.

Is this what happens in the original Ultimate, though? I haven't seen anything about ties on this page and was wondering, since it seems like an interesting topic to talk about. 75.146.186.61 (talk) 15:53, 21 March 2022 (UTC)