The Wisdom of Tic Tac Toe
By: Paul A. Destefano
Tags: Teaching, Philosophy, Learning, Games, Strategy

The Wisdom of Tic Tac Toe

Important life lessons in nine moves

Tic Tac Toe is a game learned as children, and then quickly tossed aside. As the computer in WarGames tells is, the only way to win is not to play.



In playing Tic Tac Toe, there are some surprisingly strong life lessons to be learned.



You can control other people.



Not in a malicious way, but in a way that helps you guide your own choices and realize the impact your actions have on others. It has nothing to do with winning or losing. It has to do with power.



In Conan The Barbarian, Thulsa Doom points to a girl on a high cliff and beckons her. She mindlessly takes the step, plunging to her death. Thulsa then explains to Conan that THAT is true power.



And it all begins in Tic Tac Toe. The first moving player can control where the other player goes, and there is the tacit agreement of “Do what I say, or you lose”. Strangely enough, they must react properly to that second player, or lose themselves.



There is an exercise at work here. Tic Tac Toe is almost not a game, but a philosophical exercise, teaching the strength of controlling someone else’s actions.



After a while, a player does not expect to win anymore. You learn to expect to simply not lose. Is it a puzzle more than a game at that point? No, because you can beat a child you just taught the game to. They are in the earlier stages of this evolution of realizing it is a no-win situation.



Another major philosophical point is reached: Not losing is often the goal just as much as winning is. This is a piece of advice that will serve players well in the future. You can strive to be on a team, not be the best, not win, but still score a personal victory by not being the worst, allowing you to further skills by being on the team in the first place. You did not win, but you did not lose.



The interesting thing in Tic Tac Toe is that the draw occurs only by striving to not lose.



The second player always reacts to the first. The second player MUST defend, or lose. If the first player plays properly, the second player gets no choices on where they move. It is either play for the draw or lose. Yet the second player still plays the game, knowing they cannot actually win, unless the first player commits an error in their second move.



This is a game that gets fairly harsh criticism. The criticism is that the game is quickly mastered, at least by adults. The game is solved.



And, indeed, it is — 100%.



Yet we still watch movies a second time, knowing the ending.



There are a few epic large concepts hiding in this tiny 9 move game, which wiser players will internalize and take with them beyond the game:



As attacker: You can influence the actions of others, predicting responses, as long as you are aware of the other’s goals.



As defender: Sometimes, you must play for the not-lose as well as the win.



In WarGames, the world is saved BECAUSE the computer plays the game and realizes that some fights are futile and some paths predetermined. It HAD to play the game to win the metagame, and that’s what tic tac toe does.



For children, it teaches persistence. And sportsmanship. But in truth, there are thousands of other games that can do that.



It teaches us to know sometimes we control our surroundings, and sometimes our surroundings control us. If there is no victory, that also means there has been no defeat, and an interesting dance of equality occurs. The game becomes more like a puzzle for two.



I think the intrinsic value of this game is so great that it in truth MUST be played, at least until it is solved by the players. The lessons learned follow through to many other boardgames and aspects of life.



Tic Tac Toe is indeed, not broken, but important lessons disguised as a children’s game.