Othello, also known as reversi, is a 2-player board game. It is named for its unpredictability. More importantly, it is the final project of my AI class, CS221.

I am a very bad othello player personally. But in doing the othello project (i.e. writing an AI program that plays othello), I learned a great deal about the game, and soon fell in love with it.

The reason I liked othello so much (besides having written a program that beats myself) is that othello teaches the lesson of life. The goal in othello (i.e. having more pieces than your opponent) can be viewed as a simplified version of the goal of life - having as much happiness as one can. Here I relate "piece" in othello to "happiness" in life.

Viewed in this light, many othello-playing strategies apply to life. For instance, that of limiting the number of pieces at the beginning of the game, since having too many pieces at the beginning of the game often decreases mobility and leads to a loss. The same strategy applies to life - by working hard when you are young (and hence limiting your happiness), you get into better schools and receive a better education, and hence have more choices in the later part of your life.

The key to othello playing lies in striking a balance between mobility (the number of moves one has) and number of pieces. The same is true for life - aren't we always struggling between more choices and more happiness? Increasing future choices often requires a cost of present happiness; and vice versa. Striking a balance is what life is all about.

Enough bs... Here is our program "Lap Fung" who won the CS221 tournament. It was originally written for UNIX but I have included a Windows version so you can try your hand against it.

lapfung.zip | report

Do send me a email if you can beat it.