If tic-tac toe is your first game, learn arrays and functions, it will make life easier for you. Also, when you have finished it, try changing the code and use pointers/references and gasp at the cleaner code ( references ) give you over pointers.
BTW if you are using memory managment, eg, new and delete then you would have to use pointers. but for tic tac toe just use references, I cant really see a need for pointers, the version I created used references and I found it simpler to create
