Talk:3D tic-tac-toe

Untitled

Is the picture a

• Sore Four (online example) or a
• Qubic (online example java)?

Which one is real Qubic: the 3d 4x4x4 Tic tac toe in which you can leave your token on the highest plattform anytime, or the one in that your token falls down? Which one did Patashnik and Victor Allis solve in their work (references)? --anon1

Qubic is 4x4x4 tic-tac-toe. Score Four has the additional restriction of stacking, usually implemented using colored beads on pegs. Victor Allis solved both games in his thesis, which may have led to some of the confusion. --IanOsgood 14:38, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

I have quickly skimmed Allis masters thesis and Ph.D. thesis, but can not find a direct or indirect reference to Score Four.

Is it really solved? If so, could anyone please direct me to a specific section of Allis thesis (or some other publication). --anon3

Patashnik and Allis independently solved qubic (3d 4x4x4 tic tac toe). From the original paper (his masters thesis) by Allis, it seemed that he only weakly solved qubic. However I have not read his "Qubic solved again" paper mentioned in this page, but I think it is the same paper that was in his thesis. --anon2

The image was of Score Four although it is misnamed qubic.jpg. That is why I moved the image to the Score Four page. --IanOsgood 16:03, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

I actually own the Parker Brothers game. I'm wondering if I should take a photo and include it here, and if so, how best to do that. Do I put the photo on Picasa or some such and link to it, or upload it directly? kogorman (talk) 17:03, 9 February 2016 (UTC)

Upload it directly. Instructions and other info here: WP:Images I have both versions of the PB game but we probably don't need images of both! If we have a lot of images we should probably put them (and the cover of the Atari game) in a gallery. Jeh (talk) 21:46, 9 February 2016 (UTC)

"Fool's mate strategy" section

I put an unclear tag on this.

• Does this assume that X is the first player?
• Does it assume that neither of X's first two moves are on powerpoints, or just X's first move?
• In "the second B on one of the five available powerpoints", to which "five available powerpoints" does this refer?
  • The board starts with 16, so with move A on one of them, it looks to me as if there could be as many as 15 at that point, not just five.
  • Even if we exclude powerpoints that don't share a plane with move A, that still leaves nine.
  • If we consider only powerpoints that are on just one of the diagonal planes that contain move A, those have eight powerpoints each, so that appears to me to leave seven.
  • If we consider only powerpoints that are on just one of the non-diagonal planes that contain move A, those have four powerpoints each, so that appears to me to leave three.

...so how does it get down to just five? Also, the whole section needs a reference. Where did this come from? Jeh (talk) 19:39, 11 November 2015 (UTC)

Rewrite

The cube structure makes the 8 corner-points and 8 centre-points extremely important; each of these is a member of 6 planes (1×flat, 2×vertical, 2×diagonal-vertical, 1×cross-vertical) of 16 points. The flat and 2×vertical planes only contain 4 important points, while the 2×diagonal-vertical and cross-vertical contain 8 powerpoints.

O begins and places his first peg A on any one of the 16 powerpoints. Even if X places his first peg on a plane involving A there will be other planes involving A where O can place his second peg B; and on any such plane there will be 3 or 7 available powerpoints.

Even if X places his second peg on a plane including A & B there still remains a plane where O can place a third peg C onto one of the 2 or 6 available powerpoints. Here X must be foolish and allow a fourth O ‘1’ to be placed in that plane.

Once A, B, C & 1 are placed then there is a forced win with a further 5 pegs by O since X must respond with x1; then 2, x2; 3, x3 and so on.

This is more clear, but it all strikes me as "original research". If there's no source for it, the section should be deleted. kogorman (talk) 17:22, 9 February 2016 (UTC)

Unfortunately I have to concur. If references can't be found (and I find none in the existing references) it will have to go. Mind you, I'll be saving a copy.

I have often thought that WP needs an "annex" or "basement" for poorly referenced and/or original research material, in which such stuff could be stored, linked from the main article, and thereby preserved for benefit of future readers, of course with very clear "not referenced to WP WP:V policies" warnings. Moving something to the "basement" would be a lot less annoying to its author than the current practice of deleting. An interested editor can always move it to userspace but there's no allowed way to link to it from the article; similarly, ELs to self-published works and other stuff that doesn't meet WP:V are generally disallowed. Jeh (talk) 18:52, 9 February 2016 (UTC)

I have had to redo our summary as the Salisbury Games Group notes are now unavailable. I am sure I recollect that somehow we identified 5 points but typos happen, memory fades and I have rewritten the description. I seem to recollect that our tame mathematician argued that mathematically or rather topologically, the 4 x 4 x 4 structure can be transformed by symmetries and reflections so that many powerpoint choices are ‘identical’ - this may have reduced the choice to '5' ?! JK — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nojoking (talk • contribs) 11:58, 6 December 2015 (UTC)

The issue of automorphisms (your symmetries and reflections) was addressed by Patashnik, who credited a paper by R. Silver for proving that Qubic has 192 automorphisms. This is actually not relevant to the Fools Mate approach, which seems to assume a fixed physical arrangement of the cells. kogorman (talk) 17:22, 9 February 2016 (UTC)

The last version of the "Fool's Mate strategy" section is completely unreferenced and has been so for over a year despite the add of a CN tag. It must therefore be regarded as pure original research. Accordingly it has been removed from the article and is preserved here for reference. Click the "Show" link at the right end of this box to view it. Please do not modify it. Please do not restore any form of this to the article without adding reliable sources for each claim of fact.
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Fool's Mate strategy The cube structure makes the 8 corner-points and 8 centre-points extremely important; each of these is a member of 6 planes (1×flat, 2×vertical, 2×diagonal-vertical, 1×cross-vertical) of 16 points. The flat and 2×vertical planes only contain 4 important points, while the 2×diagonal-vertical and cross-vertical contain 8 powerpoints. O begins and places his first peg A on any one of the 16 powerpoints. Even if X places his first peg on a plane involving A there will be other planes involving A where O can place his second peg B; and on any such plane there will be 3 or 7 available powerpoints. Even if X places his second peg on a plane including A & B there still remains a plane where O can place a third peg C onto one of the 2 or 6 available powerpoints. Here X must be foolish and allow a fourth O ‘1’ to be placed in that plane. Once A, B, C & 1 are placed then there is a forced win with a further 5 pegs by O since X must respond with x1; then 2, x2; 3, x3 and so on. .A.x3..3..B .1..5..2..w x1.x2..4... .C....x4..w

Merge discussion

At least a third of the article 3-D Tic-Tac-Toe (Atari console game) (article formerly called 3-D Tic-Tac-Toe, while this one was called Qubic replicates this article. The rest is about a program for the Atari 2600. Does that program for a long-obsolete console really deserve its own article? It's not as if its existence is particularly notable - there have been many Qubic programs before and since. Jeh (talk) 02:35, 12 November 2015 (UTC)

Concur. It would make sense for this article to (briefly) list known implementations, and perhaps a redirect from any known implementations. On that topic, should the main article be named Qubic? My understanding is that it is a trade name owned by Parker Brothers. It seems better to move this to 3-D Tic-Tac-Toe, and redirect this name to that article. 47.32.142.141 (talk) 21:22, 7 February 2016 (UTC) Oops. sorry. The above was by me when I had not signed in. kogorman (talk) 16:02, 9 February 2016 (UTC)

That would make sense to me. The article about the Atari game could be moved to something like "3-D Tic-Tac-Toe (Atari console game)", thus making room to move this to "3-D Tic-Tac-Toe". Most of the implementation-specific content from the former could then be moved here and that heading would remain as a redirect, as would Qubic. Within this article "Qubic" would be a subhead describing the Parker Brothers product, sort of parallel with the mention of the 3M "Paper Games" sheets. I'm ready to be WP:BOLD on this if there are no objections. (And thank you for the response!) Jeh (talk) 02:18, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

Well, I've done most of what I can. I can't move Qubic to 3-D Tic-Tac-Toe because the latter title is now the name of a redirect to the article on the Atari game, and the redirect has an edit history. So I requested that that conflicting redirect be deleted. We'll see if that is accepted as a "to make room for an uncontroversial move". Cheers! Jeh (talk) 05:57, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

Update: Move of the talk page is still pending. Jeh (talk) 21:46, 9 February 2016 (UTC)

Annnnd the fundamentals of the move are now complete. Jeh (talk) 03:54, 10 February 2016 (UTC)

Other "Qubics"

It gets worse. I was concerned that Qubic might need disambiguation, and looked it up on Google. Sure enough, there is currently an app named Qubic available on Amazon, which I have just installed on my Kindle Fire. It is a puzzle game having nothing to do with tic-tac-toe. Moreover, there are other items and businesses that use the name. So I'm thinking the Qubic entry should be disambiguation. kogorman (talk) 16:51, 9 February 2016 (UTC)

Well, if the other things are notable enough to have articles, sure. But either way (redirect or disambig) this article should first be moved (renamed) to 3-D Tic-Tac-Toe and that can't happen until an admin deletes the redirect page that's currently there. Jeh (talk) 18:40, 9 February 2016 (UTC)

Hey, nice batch of improvements! Thank you! Nice to see another 3DTTT enthusiast. And from Cal Poly Pomona no less (I went there; I had Louden's program running on the RSTS/E system, way back when). Jeh (talk) 18:47, 9 February 2016 (UTC)

Adding my version to the page

I just made a version of this game that allows for physically playing against algorithms on an electronic board.

You can see it here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/xno/4play

I was wondering if I could mention this addition somewhere in the article, since I do think it represents a new type of play that hasn’t been possible before. However, I understand if this just seems like advertising. Any advice/direction would be appreciated. 5^.5*.5+.5=phi (talk) 17:45, 2 October 2019 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 5^.5*.5+.5=phi (talk • contribs)