The leftovers

From there, the computer player can either take the center, a corner, or a side. Which of these three positions is the most powerful, and therefore of the highest priority?

If you had mapped out all of the possible board positions in a game tree, you would already know the answer. Or, you could save a boatload of time by just reading the Tic Tac Toe article on Wikipedia. At the time of this writing, it was an excellent primer on the thinking that goes into determining the best strategy for this game, and others of its kind. Since Wikipedia is editable by anyone, it's possible that by the time you read the article, it will be full of cat pictures. Let's hope not.

We'll stand on the shoulders of giants and crib the rest of our notes from Wikipedia. According to the article, taking a corner position provides more opportunities for your opponent to make a mistake, but this only matters if 1. it's the first move and 2. your opponent actually makes a mistake. Otherwise, the preferred...