Beautiful.
Unrelated, but what would be your advice/study plan for a human to reach near perfect game play in Connect 4, and how difficult would it be?
I can recommend this book [1] on connect-4 by James Allen, the first person to solve the game. It remains very difficult for humans to play near perfectly, as the harder puzzles in the book demonstrate.
[1] https://www.waterstones.com/book/the-complete-book-of-connec...
I have it! But I've always wondered if a more systematic approach based on Victor Allis's paper might be achievable. Can you play perfectly?
Not only can I not play perfectly (unlike my Fhourstones program), but I really struggle with even the intermediate problems in the book.
A more limited form of perfect play is knowing how to win when playing first. I cannot do that either, but I suspect that I might be able to get close if I were to study hard on it for a year, trying to minimize the size of the opening book I need to keep in my head. The leaves of that book will then resemble the positions where Allis' rules apply so that you can work out further play on the fly.