At the IV coffee house (mixed college students, mixed majors, etc), we asked people to play tic-tac-toe, and this is what we found. About 70% of the people started with an X in the corner, about 15% started with an X in the center, and about 15% started with an X in one of the outside middle spots. ---------- Fish Rules: 1. Win 2. Block 3. Take a corner that leads to victory, or take another corner 4. Blah - any other square ---------- Other Rules 1st Move: Take a corner 2nd Move: If O is NOT in the middle: Take a corner not adjacent to the O, and not opposite of your first X. If O is in the middle: Take the corner opposite your first move. Subsequent Moves (prioritized as follows): 1. Win 2. Block 3. Take another corner ---------- Sam's Rotational Observance... we can't explain in e-mail. ---------- Psychology brings us to a whole new level. A learning database, even for tic-tac-toe, is extremely complicated. We think that we should start with X in the corner. X starting in the center is only advantageous if we can make use of a learning database.