Dots / Tochki / Точки – the classic paper-and-pencil strategy game, online

How to play

1. Place one dot per turn. Red moves first. Click or tap any free intersection of the grid lines (not the inside of a square).
2. Build chains. Your dots link to each other when they touch horizontally, vertically or diagonally, just like the squares a king can move to in chess.
3. Close a loop around enemy dots. The moment your new dot completes a closed chain with at least one of your opponent's dots inside it, the whole area is captured. The game draws the boundary and shades the area in your colour.
4. Capture more than your opponent. Each enemy dot inside your areas is one point. The game ends when the board is full, when a player stops the game under the grounding rule, or when someone resigns.

Controls

Against the computer, Undo takes back your last move and the computer's reply together. Your game is saved automatically in your browser, so you can close the tab and continue later.

The rules in detail

The board

Dots is played on the intersections of a square grid of any size. The traditional size is 39 by 32 points, which is what fits on one page of a Russian squared school exercise book. Smaller boards (16×16 or 24×24) give quicker games and are easier to tap on a phone.

Chains and capturing

A chain is a line of your own dots in which each dot touches the next one horizontally, vertically or diagonally. When a dot you place completes a closed chain that has at least one enemy dot inside it, everything inside is surrounded: enemy dots, empty points and any of your own dots in there. Only the enemy dots score. If several loops are possible, the game automatically picks the smallest area, as computer versions of Dots usually do. One dot can complete several captures at once.

Captured areas are out of play

Every dot and empty point inside a captured area is removed from further play. Nobody can place a dot there again, and the dots inside can no longer be used as part of a new chain. They stay on the board faded, so you can see what was taken.

Empty loops (“houses”)

You cannot capture an area with no enemy dots in it. The space inside an empty loop stays open to both players, and your opponent can even use those points to complete a chain of their own. But placing a dot inside your opponent's closed loop is dangerous: if that dot does not immediately capture something, it is surrounded and captured on the spot. The move is allowed, it just never helps.

Recapturing an area

A captured area is not safe for ever. Its boundary is still a chain of live dots, so it can itself be surrounded. If you close a loop of your own dots around the outside of your opponent's captured area, the whole thing becomes yours:

• Their boundary dots are captured and each one scores a point for you, together with any other enemy dots inside your loop.
• Your dots they had captured are released. They no longer count for your opponent, so the points they won with that capture are cancelled. Released dots stay out of play: they remain faded and can't be used in new chains.
• The area changes colour. The game draws your boundary around it and shades it in your colour.

Two limits apply. You must go around the outside, because nobody can place a dot inside a captured area, and dots that are already captured can't be part of your chain. And with the grounding rule on, a boundary that is linked to the edge of the board can't be enclosed at all.

Winning

The player with more captured enemy dots wins. Informal paper games often simply ran until one player gave up. On this site a game ends when there are no free points left, when either player uses the stop rule below, or when someone resigns from the menu.

Starting positions

If a player only ever puts dots on the edge of the board, none of them can be captured and the game is likely to stall into a draw. To avoid that, games usually start from a fixed position in the centre. The more crosses on the board, the more active and less drawish the game becomes.

You can also choose an empty board from the menu if you and a friend want to play the old-fashioned way.

The grounding rule

Modern competitive Dots uses a grounding rule, switched on by default here. Any group of linked dots that touches the edge of the board is grounded: it can never be surrounded, and neither can any dot linked to it. A diagonal link that is crossed by an enemy diagonal link does not count, though: if your opponent closes a loop through that crossing, the dots inside are captured as usual.

Once you have placed at least five dots of your own, you may stop the game (the Stop button stays greyed out until then, because at the start nothing is grounded yet). Doing so means “everything I want to keep is grounded, you can take the rest.” On paper the opponent would then keep playing to surround every loose dot. Here the result is applied at once: all of the stopping player's dots that are not grounded are given to the opponent, and the final score is shown. Before you confirm, the board marks the dots you would lose with a ×, and the note warns you if stopping would lose you the game. The computer will also stop the game when it is ahead and has nothing loose to lose.

A good player in a weak position usually resigns instead of waiting for the stop rule to be applied against them.

Stickers and goals

Good moves earn stickers. When you reach a goal, a sticker pops up on the notebook page with a little cheer, and the first time you earn each one it is marked NEW STICKER! and added to your sticker book (open it from the menu). Against the computer only your own moves count; in a game with a friend both players collect stickers.

Each in-game sticker can pop up once per game, so every new game is another chance to collect them. Your sticker book is saved in your browser along with your record.

Computer levels

Playing a friend? Choose Friend in the menu and pass the phone or share the mouse. Red always moves first.

Strategy tips

• Diagonal steps are your fastest links. A diagonal neighbour joins your chain just like an orthogonal one, and diagonal walls cover ground quickly.
• Make two threats at once. Your opponent can block only one point per turn. A dot that threatens to close two different loops usually wins something.
• Count your opponent's open points. Before each move, look for any place where one enemy dot would close a loop around yours, and block it first.
• Protect your captures. An area you captured in the open can be recaptured by surrounding it from outside. Link its boundary to your other groups or to the edge so it can't be enclosed.
• Do not drop dots into enemy houses. A dot inside a closed enemy loop is captured straight away unless it completes a capture itself.
• Stay connected to the edge when ahead. With the grounding rule, a chain linked to the border is safe for ever. Once you lead, ground your groups and stop the game.
• Do not hug the edge too early. Edge dots are safe but they capture nothing. Fight in the centre and use the edge as your fallback.
• Big boards reward patience. On 39×32 there is room for long walls. Cut the board into regions and surround your opponent's groups from outside.

History and names

Dots has been a classroom favourite since the second half of the 20th century, especially across Eastern Europe, where every pupil had an exercise book of squared paper and two pens of different colours. In Russia it is called Точки (Tochki, “dots”), in Poland Kropki, and in the Czech Republic Židi. The 39 by 32 board is simply the grid on one page of such a notebook.

The game is related to Go, since both are about surrounding the opponent's stones or dots, and it shares the squared-paper setting with the simpler and smaller Dots and Boxes, although the rules are completely different: in Dots and Boxes players draw lines to complete boxes, while in Dots they place points to surround each other.

Variants

In the Polish variant kropki na dwie kratki (“dots over two squares”), a chain may also jump two points orthogonally or diagonally over an empty point, or link dots a knight's move apart. This makes attacking easier. The online game on this page uses the standard one-step links.

About this game

This version of Dots / Tochki is written from scratch in plain HTML5 canvas and JavaScript. The board is drawn in code to look like a page of squared paper, sound effects are synthesized with the Web Audio API, and no external images or fonts are loaded for the game itself. Capture detection finds the smallest enclosed area automatically, so you never have to draw the boundary by hand. The page can be added to your home screen and keeps working once loaded.

Rules on this page follow the traditional game as described in the Wikipedia article on Dots (paper-and-pencil game).

Frequently asked questions