It's a trap!
What are the most powerful ways in which to play this game? Tic Tac Toe neophytes suppose that the most powerful square on the grid is the middle. After all, doesn't the most high-profile washed-up celebrity get the center square on Hollywood Squares?
However, as any discerning Tic Tac Toe player knows, playing the corners is perhaps a wiser move, because it facilitates a trap, where scoring 3-in-a-row is possible in two different places. Blocking one path simply allows the player to win with the second path.
So in this situation, blocking is not an option. The only viable options are to win, if possible, or to have prevented the opponent from creating a trap to begin with. So that gives us one more rule for our AI player:
Prevent a trap
And really, if it's possible to set a trap for the opponent, we want our artificially intelligent computer player to try to do that. So we have:
Prevent a trap
Create a trap
Where do these two things fit in our existing prioritized list of rules?
Win...
