How to play
Ultimate Tic-Tac-Toe is nine tic-tac-toe boards arranged in a 3×3 grid. Win three small boards in a row to win the game. The twist: the cell you pick sends your opponent to the matching small board — play the top-right cell of any board, and they must play in the top-right board. If that board is already decided, they may play anywhere.
The Gauntlet: you get one run per day. Beat Beginner and you advance to Easy, then Medium, and so on up to Impossible. A draw counts as a loss — win or go home. When your run ends, you can practice against any difficulty you beat today, and come back tomorrow for a fresh run. Every difficulty above Beginner is a neural network that taught itself the game — nobody programmed it how to play. Impossible is the network at full strength, thinking as deeply as it likes.
Before each game you choose your side — X always moves first. You get one hint per run — it asks the strongest network what it would play.
Play: any opponent, either side, unlimited hints. Analysis: tap out any game (you move for both sides) and the strongest network shows its evaluation, best move (pulsing), runner-up candidates, and expected line. Moves are written board·cell, each numbered 1–9 left-to-right, top-to-bottom — so 5·5 is the very center. Set up position (in Analysis and Play) lets you place X's and O's anywhere, then analyze or play the engine from there.