[general_re]

I had to go look up Othello, since I've never actually played it. What can I say? I was a deprived child ;)

I don't see that it's been fully solved, but the depth of the game is apparently such that computer programs can typically look ahead about 25 moves, and therefore play a perfect game from about 1/3'rd of the way in onward. Apparently, computer programs have been regularly beating human world champions every year since about 1980. Anyway, from a superficial glance at it, the gameplay appears to be much different than Go, besides being on a smaller board.

IIRC, the depth of Deep Blue's searches varied, but it tended to hover around 7- or 8-ply, or about 14-16 moves ahead at any given point.

[general_re]

Nevermind the last bit. You know, I really should verify that my memory is operant before posting ;)

Anyway, Deep Blue was apparently capable of at least 30-ply, should the occasion warrant it - IOW, it could look 60 moves ahead. Obviously, the search space at such a depth is enormous, so once again, the real cleverness is in pruning that tree down to manageable proportions.