Indeed! I basically programmed it to do roughly what I (a total novice) do when I play. Mainly for when my kids want to play and I don’t (or am not around).

For Othello, picking the positionally best square (corners very good, adjacent to corners very bad, 2 squares from corner good, etc.) beats lookahead, likely because having unflippable pieces in good positions leads to large swings in score in the endgame that a short lookahead won't see.

I play almost purely positionally with no conscious lookahead and I beat it soundly every time, playing as both black and white, frequently with the AI having to pass because it had no legal moves.

A "don't yield a corner" heuristic to never move in the three squares around a corner unless there are no other legal moves would likely significantly strengthen its play.

I wouldn't describe myself as a "better Othello player", but I managed to thoroughly beat it with the simple strategy of occupying the corners of the board as soon as possible...

Yay! I'll take that as a compliment! I cut my teeth on the Microsoft windows version, which can be surprisingly good.

It's just terrible, I got it to have to pass in just a few turns.

Yes easily, just make sure you catch corner and edges.