Grand Prize

Roemer B. Lievaart
VU Informatica
Churchilllaan 173-IV
Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Judges' remarks:

We believe that you too will be amazed at just how much power Mr. Lievaart packed into 1024 bytes!

This Plays the game of reversi (Othello)! Compile and run. It then asks for a playing level. Enter 0-10 (easy-hard). It then asks for your move. A move is a number within 11-88, or a 99 to pass. Illegal moves (except for an illegal pass) are rejected. Then the computer does its move (or a 0 to pass), until the board is full.

It plays rather well, for such a small program! Lievaart had to leave out the board printing routine, so you’ll have to take a real game board to play it. … Also due to space-limitations (the rules for 1987 had a limit of 1024 byes), Lievaart took out the passing-handler, which makes its ending-game rather poor. But further it knows all the rules, uses alpha-beta pruning, and it plays f.i. on mobility(!). Most important: it can play a pretty good game of Reversi!

The Author was kind enough to supply the fully functional version of the program. The file lievaart2.c contains what the program would have been without the size restriction. This version has the full end game logic and displays the board after each move!

Copyright © 1987, Landon Curt Noll & Larry Bassel. All Rights Reserved. Permission for personal, educational or non-profit use is granted provided this this copyright and notice are included in its entirety and remains unaltered. All other uses must receive prior permission in writing from both Landon Curt Noll and Larry Bassel.