Warmup: Play A Game of Tic Tac Toe

a blank 3x3 grid from playing tic-tac-toe

In case you need a refresher on the game:

  • The tic-tac-toe board is a 3x3 grid.

  • One person will draw an X in one of the squares.

  • The other person will draw and O in one of the squares.

  • Keep taking turns — the goal is to get three in a row or block your neighbor from getting three in a row.

  • The game ends when one of you gets three in a row or the grid is full.

Design a Tic Tac Toe Notation

In order to communicate with Soekia about tic tac toe games, we’ll need to record the moves using an annotation.

  • Let’s think of the 3x3 tic-tac-toe grid as a first quadrant coordinate plane with the origin (0,0) in the bottom left corner

  • For each move, our notation must indicate:

    • the player whose turn it is (X or O)

    • the ordered pair (x, y) for the location of the player’s move on that turn

1 How would you annotate the first turn (above)? The second turn?

Annotating a Game of Tic Tac Toe

an image five consecutive tic-tac-toe turns

2 Complete the table by translating the 5 turn sequence above into our tic tac toe annotation.

For Reference:

  • If player X makes a move in the bottom right corner, we would describe that turn as:   X31

  • If player O makes a move in the middle of the left column, we would describe that turn as:   O12

1st move 2nd move 3rd move 4th move 5th move

Translating Notation to the Game Board

3 Translate the list of moves below into a game played on the tic tac toe board.

  • X32

  • O22

  • X12

  • O11

  • X33

  • O13

  • X31

a blank 3x3 grid from playing tic-tac-toe

4 Is there a winner?

These materials were developed partly through support of the National Science Foundation, (awards 1042210, 1535276, 1648684, 1738598, 2031479, and 1501927). CCbadge Bootstrap by the Bootstrap Community is licensed under a Creative Commons 4.0 Unported License. This license does not grant permission to run training or professional development. Offering training or professional development with materials substantially derived from Bootstrap must be approved in writing by a Bootstrap Director. Permissions beyond the scope of this license, such as to run training, may be available by contacting contact@BootstrapWorld.org.