Tic-Tac-Toe darts rules: nine squares, three in a row
Tic-Tac-Toe darts is noughts and crosses played at the oche. A 3×3 grid, a number on every square, and one dart on that number claims the square for you. Three in a row — across, down or diagonally — wins. Two players, three darts a turn.
How a square is claimed
- The middle square is the Bull. The eight around it are numbers from 1 to 20, dealt fresh for every game and shown on the setup card before anybody throws.
- One dart, one square. Hit a square’s number in any bed and it is yours; the ring makes no difference in the classic game. Three darts a turn, so a turn can take up to three squares.
- Tap MISS for a dart that landed nowhere — on a number nobody owns a square for, or off the board entirely.
- A claimed square is claimed forever, which is why the opening turn matters so much: whoever takes the centre is in four of the eight winning lines before the other player has thrown.
- A full board with no line goes to whoever holds the most squares, and an equal count is a draw.
Why it plays nothing like the paper version
On paper, noughts and crosses is a solved draw. On a dartboard it is not, because you cannot always take the square you want — you can only take the one you hit. Blocking is the whole game: the square that stops your opponent’s line is often a 7 or a 13 in an awkward corner of the wire, and choosing between blocking there and completing your own line somewhere friendlier is a decision a paper game never asks.
The centre is the other half of it. It stands in four of the eight winning lines, and as the Bull it is the hardest target on the board by a wide margin — so between two players who cannot hit one, the classic game is decided by the eight squares around a hole in the middle nobody can fill.
House rules this board plays
The part no other rules page has, because no other site implements them. Each one opens the setup screen with that rule already set.
- Misère Three in a row loses it, which turns the board inside out: the centre stops being the prize and becomes the trap, and you have to hit the numbers you don’t want in order to leave the ones you do. Blocking becomes baiting. A full board with no line is a draw under this rule — nobody completed a line, so nobody lost it, and the square count does not decide a game that treats squares as a liability. Set it up →
- Steals The rule that keeps the board alive, and the one that makes the rings matter: a double on an opponent’s square takes it back, and a treble claims it and locks it — against them, against any later steal, and even against you. A fast opener no longer decides the game, and the last two squares are worth fighting over. Set it up →
- A number in the middle Puts one more wire number where the Bull was, so the square that decides most games is one everybody can actually hit. The ring is dealt or checked around it, so no number ever appears on two squares. Set it up →
- The board you pick The eight outer squares, top-left first, instead of the shuffle — the same board every night, so two games and two players can be compared. The high end of the wire is the natural set: 20, 19, 18, 17, 16, 15, 14, 13. Set it up →
- The kitchen-table game Steals on, a number in the middle: the version for children, for a mixed-ability pair, or for the fourth pint. Everything is reachable and nothing is settled until the last square. Set it up →
Common questions
- How do you play tic-tac-toe on a dartboard? A 3 by 3 grid with a number on every square: one dart on that number claims the square for you, and three in a row across, down or diagonally wins.
- What is the middle square? The Bull in the classic game, which is the hardest target on the board and stands in four of the eight winning lines. A house rule puts an ordinary wire number there instead.
- Can you take a square back? Only with steals on: a double on an opponent's square takes it back and a treble claims it and locks it for good. Otherwise a claimed square is claimed forever.
Play it
Tic-Tac-Toe darts is one of the twenty modes in Friendly Fire Casper, a free darts scoreboard that runs in a browser and keeps working when the wifi drops. It deals the board, draws the grid, spots the line the moment it lands, undoes the dart you typed wrong, and can put the grid on a TV while both players score from their own phones.