How to play Dots and Boxes

Dots and Boxes is the game from the back of a school notebook, and it is far bigger than it looks. The first half of a game feels like doodling. Then the safe lines run out, every move becomes a gift to somebody, and you find out who was actually counting.

The board and the pieces

The board is a six by six grid of dots, which makes room for twenty-five boxes. There are no pieces. On your turn you draw one line between two neighbouring dots, across or up and down.

How you win

Draw the fourth side of a box and that box is yours, and you draw again immediately. Keep closing boxes and you keep drawing, so one turn can run through a whole chain of them. When every line on the board has been drawn, the game is over, and whoever owns more of the twenty-five boxes wins. Twenty-five is an odd number, so a tie is impossible: every game of Dots and Boxes has a winner. Your opponent can also resign, and if their clock runs out, you win on time.

The rules that matter

The extra turn is the whole game. Drawing the third side of a box hands your opponent a free box, and with it another draw. Early on that is easy to avoid. Late in the game almost every remaining line is a third side somewhere, and the real skill is counting the chains before they open and choosing which ones you can afford to give away.

One line can close two boxes at once. You get both boxes, and it still earns exactly one extra draw, the same as closing one.

Taking everything is not always right. Near the end, hoovering up every box on offer means your last closing line hands the turn, and the next chain, straight back to your opponent. Strong players sometimes decline the final two boxes of a chain on purpose, giving up a little to win a lot. If that makes no sense yet, it will after three games, and it is the moment this game gets its hooks into you.

How a match works on Dream Games

Both players put up the same stake, and both stakes are set aside before the first move. The winner takes 90% of the pot and we keep 10% as our fee. Dots and Boxes cannot end level from play, so the only draw is one you both agree to, and that returns both stakes in full.

Each player has ten minutes on the clock for the whole game. Your clock only runs while it is your turn. Run out of time and you lose, even if you are ahead on the board.

Try it

The best way in is simply to play. Practice is free: pick a bot on easy, medium or hard, or send a friend a link. Nothing is staked and nothing is recorded, so you can experiment as much as you like.

When you are ready to play for something, find an opponent in the lobby. You see the stake and the payout before you accept, and nothing leaves your balance until you say yes.