Martin Gardner proposed the problem of playing a game of tic-tac-toe (or tit-tat-toe) with nine playing cards on a drawn grid, culminating in the formation of a magic square. Don Costello solved Gardner's problem, after which Dai Vernon added a touch and Geoffrey Mott-Smith devised rules of playing strategy. Gardner published the collaborative work of all four men in his Mathematics, Magic and Mystery, 1959, p. 28.

See also: The Magic Square.