 For most novice players, the game begins with a phase of more-or-less randomly connecting dots, where the only strategy is to avoid adding the third side to any box.This continues until all the remaining (potential) boxes are joined together into "chains" – groups of one or more adjacent boxes in which any move gives all the boxes in the chain to the opponent.At this point, players typically take all available boxes, then "open" the smallest available chain to their opponent.