Lol I literally made a 3 page word document on different strategies and found a strategy that always beats the Monty AI.
Here's a link to the document: https://1drv.ms/w/s!AvSYeCytiUI2gXVPRxZp-4FsHAiK?e=3R5Jh7
This is awesome! I'll add one more technique for you, which might be a bit more useful on a 5x5 board:
Breaking Combos - Instead of capturing a combo, place a low value in the corner. By not capturing, you take away their ability to recapture, forcing them to defend the combo or risk losing it.
The bots can be a little greedy, I wanna try to make another bot that plays a bit more analytical at some point.