I want to write a computer program that plays Othello. Are there any academic papers written about computer Othello?
I’m assuming that you’re at the level of a computing science undergraduate in skills when it comes to programming as I answer this question. Without the equivalent skills, writing a program that plays Othello (or other games, such as chess) may be too difficult. In reality, Othello is the easiest of the “major” games to program properly, due to the small rule set. If you do not understand game tree search (minimax, alphabeta or NegaScout), there are a number of sources for information on game tree search, such as Judea Pearl’s book “Heuristics” (for senior undergrads) or the series of books by David Levy, starting with “Computers and Chess” (for more basic information). These are the four papers that I would personally recommend to interested Artificial Intelligence students who have already been introduced to game tree search.
