Golden three in a row

Rules — Golden three in a row

• The board has nine cells and nine lines. Every line holds exactly three cells, and every cell sits on exactly three lines — so there is no centre cell, and no cell is worth more than another for that reason.
• Each player has three pieces. First they are placed, one per turn, on any empty cell.
• Once all six are on the board, on your turn you slide one of your pieces to a neighbouring empty cell. Neighbours are cells next to each other along a line. Drag the piece where you want it, or tap it and then tap the cell — both work.
• Whoever completes a whole line wins, whether by placing or by sliding.
• If nobody wins after sixty sliding moves, the game is a draw.

Levels:

• Level 1 — Classic, no restrictions.
• Level 2 — Balanced: the opening piece may not go on a side point (P, Q or R). Level 1 is a win for whoever starts, and that is exactly the opening they need; banning it makes the game even.

Why "golden": the side points cut each side in the golden ratio and the inner points sit at the golden point of their line. That is not decoration — it is the only way the nine triples are genuinely straight.

Maroon already holds two cells of the same line and the third one is empty. The piece that wins is not the one you would expect: it is the inner piece, which happens to be a neighbour of the gap. One slide and the line is done.

That is the whole second phase. Placing your three pieces on a line does nothing by itself — you have to arrive at a position where two of them are already on a line and the third can walk into the hole.

And the thing worth staring at: count the lines through the cell at the top, and then through the one that looks like the middle. Three in both cases. This board has no centre — which is exactly why it is not the ordinary three in a row.