In this game, players are dealt two hole cards followed by a betting round. The board will be made up by a 3-by-3 grid of cards, comprising 9 cards in total like so:
Even though sometimes the matrix is dealt all at once, followed by the last betting round, the usual practice is to deal a b c first, followed by a round of betting, then g h i, followed by yet another betting round, then d and f followed by another betting round and finally e, followed by the last betting round.
Players have to make their hands using both their hole cards, and exactly three cards off the board. They can use any row, column or diagonal of the above matrix for this reason. You can either use your two hole cards in combination with: a b c, d e f, g h i, a d g, b e h, c f i, a e i, or c e g.
In some Tic Tac Toe variants, the number of hole cards can be either 3 or 4, but players are still only allowed to play exactly 2 of them.
Don’t expect to find this game online anywhere, I’m not even sure whether it’s ever been played in a casino, either.
