An automatic script to run the 2048 game until completion

Question

I've written a short Selenium application in Java, to run the 2048 game:

import org.openqa.selenium.By;
import org.openqa.selenium.Keys;
import org.openqa.selenium.WebDriver;
import org.openqa.selenium.interactions.Action;
import org.openqa.selenium.interactions.Actions;
import org.openqa.selenium.firefox.FirefoxDriver;

WebDriver driver  = new FirefoxDriver();
Actions   actions = new Actions(driver);
actions = actions.sendKeys(Keys.ARROW_UP);
actions = actions.sendKeys(Keys.ARROW_RIGHT);
actions = actions.sendKeys(Keys.ARROW_DOWN);
actions = actions.sendKeys(Keys.ARROW_LEFT);
Action action = actions.build();
By byButtonXpath  = By.xpath("//a[@class='restart-button']");
By byMessageXpath = By.xpath("//div[@class='game-message game-over']");
driver.get("http://gabrielecirulli.github.io/2048/");
while (true)
{
    driver.findElement(byButtonXpath).click();
    do action.perform();
    while (driver.findElements(byMessageXpath).size() == 0);
}

I've assumed that the best heuristic approach would be to keep the board as balanced as possible. In mathematical terms, I guess it could be asserted by aiming for a minimal standard-deviation of the numbers on the board.

Based on this assumption, I have used is a simple clockwise arrow-clicking (up, right, left, right) algorithm. Now, obviously, this is not a very sophisticated algorithm, yet it still broke my own record (perhaps I'm not very sophisticated either).

In any case, my questions are:

1. Is my heuristic approach of keeping the board as balanced as possible at all times correct?
2. Are there any known algorithms that consider the current numbers before making the next move?

Thanks