Code Golf: Tic Tac Toe

Question

Crazy Python solution - 79 characters

max([b[x] for x in range(9) for y in range(x) for z in range(y)
    if x+y+z==12 and b[x]==b[y]==b[z]] + [0])

However, this assumes a different order for the board positions in b:

 5 | 0 | 7
---+---+---
 6 | 4 | 2
---+---+---
 1 | 8 | 3

That is, b[5] represents the top-left corner, and so on.

To minimize the above:

r=range
max([b[x]for x in r(9)for y in r(x)for z in r(y)if x+y+z==12and b[x]==b[y]==b[z]]+[0])

93 characters and a newline.

Update: Down to 79 characters and a newline using the bitwise AND trick:

r=range
max([b[x]&b[y]&b[z]for x in r(9)for y in r(x)for z in r(y)if x+y+z==12])

C, 77 (83) characters

This is a variant of dmckee's solution, except that each pair of digits in the Compact Coding is now the base-9 digits of the ASCII characters.

The 77-char version, does not work on MSVC:

// "J)9\t8\r=,\0" == 82,45,63,10,62,14,67,48,00 in base 9.
char*k="J)9 8\r=,",c;f(int*b){return(c=*k++)?b[c/9]&b[c%9]&b[*k--%9]|f(b):0;}

This 83-char version, should work on every C compiler:

f(int*b){char*k="J)9    8\r=,",s=0,c;while(c=*k++)s|=b[c%9]&b[c/9]&b[*k%9];return s;}

(Note that the spaces between the 9 and 8 should be a tab. StackOverflow converts all tabs into spaces.)

---

Test case:

#include <stdio.h>  
void check(int* b) {
    int h0 = b[0]&b[1]&b[2];
    int h1 = b[3]&b[4]&b[5];
    int h2 = b[6]&b[7]&b[8];
    int h3 = b[0]&b[3]&b[6];
    int h4 = b[1]&b[4]&b[7];
    int h5 = b[2]&b[5]&b[8];
    int h6 = b[0]&b[4]&b[8];
    int h7 = b[2]&b[4]&b[6];
    int res = h0|h1|h2|h3|h4|h5|h6|h7;
    int value = f(b);
    if (value != res)
        printf("Assuming f({%d,%d,%d, %d,%d,%d, %d,%d,%d}) == %d; got %d instead.\n", 
            b[0],b[1],b[2], b[3],b[4],b[5], b[6],b[7],b[8], res, value);
}
#define MAKEFOR(i) for(b[(i)]=0;b[(i)]<=2;++b[(i)])

int main() {
    int b[9];

    MAKEFOR(0)
    MAKEFOR(1)
    MAKEFOR(2)
    MAKEFOR(3)
    MAKEFOR(4)
    MAKEFOR(5)
    MAKEFOR(6)
    MAKEFOR(7)
    MAKEFOR(8)
        check(b);

    return 0;
}

Python 80 (69) char

Not the shortest Python solution, but I like how it introduces "DICE" into a game of tic-tac-toe:

W=lambda b:max([b[c/5-9]&b[c/5+c%5-9]&b[c/5-c%5-9]for c in map(ord,"DICE>3BQ")])

69 chars for the simpler expression:

max([b[c/5-9]&b[c/5+c%5-9]&b[c/5-c%5-9]for c in map(ord,"DICE>3BQ")])

Perl, 87 85 characters

A function that returns 0, 1 or 2, using a regular expression, of course (the newline's only there to avoid the scrollbar):

sub V{$"='';$x='(1|2)';"@_"=~
/^(...)*$x\2\2|^..$x.\3.\3|$x..\4..\4|$x...\5...\5/?$^N:0}

It can be called as V(@b), for example.