Thread: Resolving a circular reference

For reasons unknown, but probably to do with wine, I decided to dedicate my evening to see if I could create an Excel sheet to play tic-tac-toe (or noughts and crosses, as we call it in the UK) using only formula.

I think that, largely, I've managed, but I can not resolve the final circular reference in the attached sheet.

As an overview - the 'board' is in cells C2:E4 and looks in column A for moves made. The board is surrounded by cells (B1:F1 and B2:B4) which detect winning lines and, if a winning line is made the result "WINNER!) is placed in cell G1.

The formulas in B6:B15 check whether each move is valid.

All of this works, but what I can't do is check for each move whether there's been a winner, because that depends on the number in column A, which informs the contents of C2:E4, which lets the cells in B1:F1 and B2:B4 check whether there's a line, which sets the value of G1, which is what I want to check.

My gut feeling is that this can not be resolved using formula, but if any of the masterminds on here want to offer suggestions that would be very useful indeed.

Please note that this exercise is utterly, utterly pointless and serves no purpose at all. Fixing this issue will not cure cancer, bring about world peace or feed starving Africans, so please don't devote any time to it at all - I just wondered if I was missing something obvious.

Thanks.

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