Dots and Boxes

How to Play Dots and Boxes

Dots and Boxes is played on a 7x7 grid of dots forming 36 boxes. On your turn, click between two adjacent dots to draw a line. When your line completes the fourth side of a box, you claim it - the box fills with your color and you immediately move again. One clever line can chain into a long run of captures, so a single turn can swing the whole game. When all 36 boxes are claimed, the player with more boxes wins; an 18-18 split is a draw.

The early game feels harmless, but every line you draw shapes the chains that decide the endgame. On PlayVersusAI you face four AI levels - the hard AI counts chain lengths and the training AI plays the double-cross - or challenge a friend in real-time online multiplayer.

Strategy Tips

• Never draw the third side of a box without a plan - it hands your opponent a free capture, and often an entire chain behind it.
• Count the chains before the giveaways start - once no safe lines remain, whoever is forced to open the first chain usually loses control of every chain after it.
• Open the shortest chain when forced - if you must give boxes away, sacrifice the two-box chain, not the eight-box one.
• Master the double-cross - decline the last two boxes of a chain by closing them off with one line. You give up two boxes but force your opponent to open the next chain for you.
• Watch chain parity - steer the board toward a number of long chains that leaves your opponent making the first sacrifice, and the endgame plays itself.