8 Board Games T he earliest application of AI to computer games was as opponents in simulated versions of common board games. In the West, Chess is the archetypal board game, and the last 40 years have seen a dramatic increase in the capabilities of Chess-playing computers. In the same time frame, other games such as Tic-Tac-Toe, Connect Four, Reversi (Othello), and Go have been studied, and AI of various qualities has been created. The AI techniques needed to make a computer play board games are very different than the