1. CPSC 335 Assignment 5 Leina Leung TUT 01 (Russel Apu) & Katy Lin TUT 02 (Jagoda Walny)

2. Explain what strategy you used and why. Alpha-Beta Pruning Why we use Alpha beta pruning? To eliminate non- interested branches of the search tree. Move-Ordering for every empty square:  If next move is a win or blocks opponent from winning then add it to the list  Else if the empty square is between 3 squares or adjacent to 3 connected squares of the same type then add it to the list  Else if this empty square makes the largest connected adjacent square of the same type then add it to the list Transposition Table: We used a transposition table to reduce calculation time. Since at any state of the board there are many different move orderings to get to that state we reduce our calculation of those same state by keeping the utility of that state.

3. Describe how well your strategy worked (use your overall ranking/score to support your claims), and explain why you think it performed the way it did. The strategy that we decided to use performed well on our part. We rank 3 rd in the competition. Mostly the move ordering is how we win and we only search 7 plies. Limitations: Due to the 3 seconds time limit and the inefficiency of our move ordering we were only able to search 7 plies deep. This only allowed us to look 4 moves in advanced and thus does not always makes the best move.

4. Describe how well your strategy worked (use your overall ranking/score to support your claims), and explain why you think it performed the way it did.

5. Our Best Move. Animation - FORK

6. THE END Thank you.