Otis Escapes, parts 4199 - 4202

 4199. Now we have to consider an even more significant aspect of this third game that the Rooster and Otis performed. As I said above, the Rooster began with an X to the upper left, and Otis opened with on O to the center.

 4200.  Rooster’s third move is quite interesting; he placed his X in the upper right hand corner. Try, if you are able, to visualize what the board looked like at this fateful moment.

 4201. You can see clearly that the Rooster can win if he gets to place his third X in between his two previous marks in the upper corners. In the next move Otis is compelled to place his O in the top center in order to prevent the Rooster from an immediate win. 

 

4202. The amazing thing, at least for me, was this fact: almost none of the birds in either of the trees, hardly a single crow or pigeon, seemed to realize that the game was already won the moment Otis failed to place his O between the two Xs already on the board, and put it in the bottom center instead.