Pencil & Paper Games Plaza: Tic Tac Toe

Noughts  and Crosses, or Tic Tac Toe, as it is called on different sides of the pond, is probably the most common pencil and paper game around in the western world. The rules are extremely simple. It's so simple it can even be played without pencil & paper, I remember playing it as a child drawing it with a twig in the sand. Surprisingly, some game manufacturers succeed in selling this as a board game.

Number of Players:
2 players

Age:
All ages

Materials:
Pencil & paper.

Time:
Less than a minute.

Object of the Game:
To score as many points as possible by coming up with the most extensive list of words.

To start:
One player draws a 3 x 3 grid on the paper.

How to Play:

The end:

When one player fills a row of 3 X's or 3 O's (his/her own symbol) this player wins.

Variations:

Because the game above is extremely simple, it lends itself to exhaustive analysis. A number of variations have sprung up, the main ones being: