Noughts&Crosses Lite

Tic-tac-toe, also called wick wack woe (in some Asian countries) and Noughts and crosses (in the UK, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, India and the rest of the British Commonwealth countries) and X's and O's in the Republic of Ireland, is a pencil-and-paper game for two players, X and O, who take turns marking the spaces in a 3×3 grid. The X player usually goes first. The player who succeeds in placing three respective marks in a horizontal, vertical, or diagonal row wins the game.

Players soon discover that best play from both parties leads to a draw (often referred to as cat or cat's game). Hence, tic-tac-toe is most often played by young children.
The friendliness of tic-tac-toe games makes them ideal as a pedagogical tool for teaching the concepts of good sportsmanship and the branch of artificial intelligence that deals with the searching of game trees.

Strategy:
A player can play perfect tic-tac-toe (win or draw) given they move according to the highest possible move from the following table.
Win: If the player has two in a row, play the third to get three in a row.
Block: If the [opponent] has two in a row, play the third to block them.
Fork: Create an opportunity where you can win in two ways.
Block opponent's Fork:
Option 1: Create two in a row to force the opponent into defending, as long as it doesn't result in them creating a fork or winning. For example, if "X" has a corner, "O" has the center, and "X" has the opposite corner as well, "O" must not play a corner in order to win. (Playing a corner in this scenario creates a fork for "X" to win.)
Option 2: If there is a configuration where the opponent can fork, block that fork.
Center: Play the center.
Opposite corner: If the opponent is in the corner, play the opposite corner.
Empty corner: Play in a corner square.
Empty side: Play in a middle square on any of the 4 sides.
The first player, whom we shall designate "X", has 3 possible positions to mark during the first turn. Superficially, it might seem that there are 9 possible positions, corresponding to the 9 squares in the grid. However, by rotating the board, we will find that in the first turn, every corner mark is strategically equivalent to every other corner mark. The same is true of every edge mark. For strategy purposes, there are therefore only three possible first marks: corner, edge, or center. Player X can win or force a draw from any of these starting marks; however, playing the corner gives the opponent the smallest choice of squares which must be played to avoid losing.
The second player, whom we shall designate "O", must respond to X's opening mark in such a way as to avoid the forced win. Player O must always respond to a corner opening with a center mark, and to a center opening with a corner mark. An edge opening must be answered either with a center mark, a corner mark next to the X, or an edge mark opposite the X. Any other responses will allow X to force the win. Once the opening is completed, O's task is to follow the above list of priorities in order to force the draw, or else to gain a win if X makes a weak play.