Reversi (Othello)

For ths assignment, you will be creating an agent that plays the game Reversi (also known by the trademark Othello). Reversi is a two-person, full information game. Rules, and some basic strategy, can be found here.

Your Assignment

For this assignment, you will create a file named <username>.py, (where <username> is your username) which contains the following 2 python functions:

nextMove(board, color, time)

where

board is a representation of the board:
The board will be represented as a list of list of strings (that is, a 2D array of strings). Each string will be "B" for black, "W" for white, or "." for an empty square.
color is either the string "B" or the string "W", representing the color to play
time is the time left on your tournament clock (in seconds).

nextMoveR(board, color, time)

Which is identical to doMove, except it plays the Reversed game (Reversed Reversi) -- when the object is to end with as few pieces of your color as possible

Your nextMove (and nextMoveR) should return either a tuple representing the position on the board to move, or the string "pass". (That is, if you return (3,4), you mean to set board[3][4] = your color). Note that a pass is only valid if there are no other moves to be made.

Your nextMove should do a minmax search, with alpha-beta pruning. You should spend some time on a good evaluation function. Singlular extensions and quiescent search may also be a good idea, but are not required. Note that either making an illegal move, or running out of time, will lose the match.

Provided Files

The following files are provided to help you get started

gameplay.py Plays two agents against each other. From the command line, this function is invoked with:
```
% python gameplay.py [-t<timelimit>] [-v] [-r] player1 player2
```
Where player1.py and player2.py are python files that contain a nextMove and nextMoveR. The flags -v stands for verbose output (display the board after every turn), and -r stands for "reversed" (use nextMoveR rather than nextMove).
randomPlay.py Sample agent that makes a random legal move
simpleGreedy.py Sampe agent that uses a brain-dead evaluation function, with no search

For example, you could have two random players play against each other with:

% python gameplay.py randomPlay randomPlay

If you wanted to play simpleGreedy against randomPlay (with simpleGreedy going first), seeing all the moves, with a clock of 150 seconds:

% python gameplay.py -t150 -v simpleGreedy randomPlay

Important Notes

All of your code must be contained within a single .py file, that must be named <username>.py. For instace, if I was turning in a n assignemnt, I would name it 'galles.py'
Your code must be in subversion.
Your functions must be named nextMove and nextMoveR, each of which takes 3 parameters
Your function must return a tuple, or the string "pass" (all lowercase)

Grading

This assignement is worth 100 points

Correct min/max: 30 points
Correct alpha-beta pruning 30 points
Consistently beats a random player: 20 points
Consistently beats my (very simple, not very smart) agent: 20 points

Contest

I will run all of your programs against each other, playing both black and white, with a time limit of 320 seconds. The overall winner will recieve an Amazon gift certificate. Places 1, 2, and 3 will receive homework extra credit of 30pts, 20pts, and 10pts.