Prague, July 22 (CTK) – The world tic-tac-toe championship has been underway in Prague, held in a local school building until July 29 and also offering quick tournaments for the public to try the old game that originated in China thousands of years ago.
Most people know tic-tac-toe as a pencil-and-paper game with O and X, but its professional version, gomuku, is played on a wooden board with glass or plastic stones of black and white colour.
In Asia, a version called renju is more popular.
Compared with classical tic-tac-toe, the professional game differs by its opening that restricts the starting player’s options, Stepan Tesarik, chairman of the Czech Tic-tac-toe and Renju Federation, has told CTK.
Tic-tac-toe, a seemingly simple game which, however, requires strategic thinking and anticipation of the rival player’s moves, similar to chess, spread from China some 4,000 years ago.
In the Czech Republic, about 20 people play top-level tic-tac-toe, and five of them regularly take part in tournaments abroad, Tesarik said.
It is impossible to count the number of those who play advanced versions of the game on the Internet or on paper, he said.
The world championship is held every two years.
The current championship is the second held in Prague. Previously, the Czech capital hosted one in 2009.
Apart from the Czech Republic, the gomuku powers include Hungary, Poland, Russia and Estonia, and naturally also Asian countries, where renju prevails, however, Tesarik said.
More information about the event is available on www.piskvorky.cz.
