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.

Playing Dots and Boxes on PlayVersusAI

Dots and Boxes on a 6x6 grid of boxes. Players take turns drawing a single line between two adjacent dots, and whoever draws the fourth side of a box claims it and immediately moves again. When every line is drawn, the player owning more boxes wins.

The game looks like a children's doodle and plays like a mathematical puzzle. Almost all of it is decided in the endgame, when the board has resolved into long chains of boxes and the only question is who is forced to open the first one. Our engine understands chain parity, which is why it can appear to be idly filling in edges and then take twelve boxes in a single turn.

What's on This Page

• Four difficulty levels — switch between Easy, Medium, Hard and AI Training at any time, including mid-game.
• Online multiplayer — play a friend in real time using a private room code, or take on a stranger from the public lobby.
• Tracked results — wins count toward your profile statistics and the site leaderboard.
• No account required — the full game is playable as a guest, on desktop, tablet or phone.

Easy takes any box it can see and opens chains carelessly. Medium avoids the obvious self-inflicted damage. Hard counts chains and manages parity. AI Training plays the double-cross sacrifice properly — deliberately declining the last two boxes of a chain to keep you on move — which is the technique that separates strong players from everyone else.

Mistakes That Lose Games

• Taking every box on offer. Sometimes you must decline the final two boxes of a chain so that your opponent is forced to open the next one. Greed loses this game more than anything else.
• Drawing the third side of a box. Any line that gives a box three sides hands it to your opponent along with a free extra turn.
• Ignoring chain length. Late in the game, the number of long chains and whether that number is odd or even decides the result before either player claims a box.
• Treating the opening as unimportant. Every early edge you draw is shaping the chain structure you will be trapped by later.

Dots and Boxes Questions

For the complete rules, the deeper strategy and the history of the game, read the full Dots and Boxes guide, or browse guides for all 20 games.