Game: Othello

Thread: Re: Simplicity of mechanic makes a it a classic

Talisinbear — 2008-09-04T01:43:35+00:00

play here has shown player A wins maybe just our experience

Thread: Re: Simplicity of mechanic makes a it a classic

drunkenKOALA — 2008-09-03T23:21:05+00:00

Like many placement and alignment games, the first player does have a tactical edge, so if two equally skilled players hook up, he who goes first will tend to be victorious most often. That is really only an issue among the highly skilled at the game though.

Where did you get that? White (the second player) is supposed to have a very slight advantage.

Thread: Re: Simplicity of mechanic makes a it a classic

docreason — 2008-09-03T22:16:23+00:00

There is a proposed variant that, when you put a piece down, you only flip pieces in one direction, not all directions. This variant was in an old O2 videogame system game "Dynasty".

Thread: Simplicity of mechanic makes a it a classic

Talisinbear — 2008-09-03T16:02:02+00:00

Sometimes the simplest concepts create the most compelling and lasting board games. Such is certainly true of the classic Othello.

Othello was originally created under the name Reversi way back in 1880 by the team of John Mollett and Lewis Waterman. The duo created a game startlingly simple in its mechanics, yet deep in the possible strategies available to players.

The game is played on a board of 8X8 squares, which unlike checkers and chess, are not coloured. The pieces used in the games remind of checkers, but are double-sided, black on one side, and white on the other. Each player takes a colour, but they pull pieces from a shared pool.

Players alternate placing a piece on the grid, a piece which must be connected to the others already laid out. The goal is simple, to have the most pieces of your colour showing once the board has been filled in.

The trick of the game comes from the mechanics whereby a player can flip pieces on the board from the opponent's colour to his own. This is accomplished by having one piece of your colour at either end of a straight line of pieces of the opposite colour. For example if a black piece is on the board, adjacent to a straight line of four white pieces, the black player can flip the entire row of white by placing another black piece at the opposite end of the string of white.

Since a straight line can be on the vertical, horizontal, and diagonal lines, it is possible to flip multiple rows of pieces, something which generally occurs as the board fills up.

The game does necessitate the repeated flipping of pieces, an exercise which might seem to be fidgety at first glance, yet never seems to be an issue during game play.

The game has enjoyed significant popularity through the years, with national organizations devoted to the game, and championships held. Today, thanks to the Internet the game is playable online at a number of sites.

Like many placement and alignment games, the first player does have a tactical edge, so if two equally skilled players hook up, he who goes first will tend to be victorious most often. That is really only an issue among the highly skilled at the game though.

Like many games which rely on strategy, there are some concepts with Othello that players will soon recognize. The most obvious is the importance of getting to the outer edge with your piece, simply because it reduces the opponent's ability to flank you by three directions.

For the same reason the corner squares of the board are even more strategically important, because you end up commanding key lines, and reduce the ability to be out-flanked even more.

As a result the game revolves around a player's efforts to set up situations where he can be the one to place their pieces in the key corners, and therein lies a central strategic thrust of the game.

Othello is amazingly simple in its mechanics, allowing the basics to be taught in minutes, so it's a great game to bring out if someone doesn't know a lot of games.

It is also deep enough, that it has remained popular and available for more than 125 years, and that alone tells you about all you need to know about Othello. It's a classic, which is well worth learning, and exploring.

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Toynan — 2008-08-16T10:25:08+00:00

Travel edition with sliding drawers

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Toynan — 2008-08-16T10:21:54+00:00

French travel edition (back of the box)

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Toynan — 2008-08-16T10:20:28+00:00

Travel french edition

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Keng Ho — 2008-08-04T13:27:12+00:00

CD case Othello - what you get in the box

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Keng Ho — 2008-08-04T13:25:25+00:00

CD case Othello - the pieces are held in a nice transparent plastic tray

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Keng Ho — 2008-08-04T13:18:43+00:00

CD case Othello - set up for play; note the Singapore Airlines logo

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Keng Ho — 2008-08-04T13:16:47+00:00

CD case Othello - box front

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Joseph Hill — 2008-07-22T23:16:09+00:00

Othello (as Reversi) played at YourTurnMyTurn.com

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zombiegod — 2008-07-21T08:57:34+00:00

Cyberboard Version

Thread: reversi/othello solo-game version : who does know the rules?

linux85 — 2008-06-29T23:55:54+00:00

In a recent ravensburger edition of reversi/othello I read on the game box that "This board game comes with new solo-game version that is included". Who does know the rules of this solo variant?

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Meander — 2008-05-29T20:06:06+00:00

Pressman Othello Box Top

Thread: Re: Negative Othello!

drunkenKOALA — 2008-04-10T07:18:06+00:00

zurround wrote:
Another variant that would be neat if you had enough free time on your hands would be on a ten by ten grid, I wonder if anyone has tried that?

I have. I don't think it's very good.

Thread: Re: Negative Othello!

zurround — 2008-03-17T20:14:00+00:00

I have an idea for a variant TARGET Othello! both players before the game starts agree on what the "target" score is. The target score can be any number that could in theory be achieved by a player as an ending score (for example no fractions, no negative numbers, and unless playing on a larger grid nothing over sixty four). Its a good idea not to make the target score way too high (as this would effectively be like playing regular othello) or way too low (as this would be effectively like playing reverse othello, which is great but a different game).

Anyway, once the "target" score is agreed upon by the 2 players you play with normal rules but whoever's ending score is CLOSEST to that target number wins the game regardless of whether it is more or less than the target number. For example if the target score is 30 a player who scores 29 will win against a player who scored 34 or tie a player who either also scores 29 or who scores 31 (same distance from the target). If a player gets exactly the target score they will win unless opponent also does so.

Thread: Re: 4x4 Othello: Is it Playable?

zurround — 2008-03-12T09:29:22+00:00

how about 3 dimensional? a six by six by six grid? six boards each board being six by six for an effective 6 6 6 "cube" with 216 spaces. the boards would be transparent and held up on the side by "stilts". The middle EIGHT spaces would start with pieces, how that would work would be the third board up would have the regular othello setup and the fourth board up would have the reverse colors of the regular setup. captures would be 3 dimensional in ALL directions!! there would be eight corners and the twelve edges of the "cube" would have strategic implications as well.

Thread: Re: Negative Othello!

zurround — 2008-03-12T09:24:11+00:00

Another variant that would be neat if you had enough free time on your hands would be on a ten by ten grid, I wonder if anyone has tried that?

Thread: Re: Othello/Reversi alternate scoring methods?

zurround — 2008-03-11T09:23:23+00:00

I have a BRILLIANT idea. How about REVERSE othello! exact same rules for movement as regular however you win the game by getting the LOWEST score!!

Thread: Re: Negative Othello!

Badgeroonie — 2008-03-07T08:39:04+00:00

This is quite a good game - you can play it online at a few websites. It certainly changes the way you approach the game. The focus shifts so different squares become fought over.

Thread: Negative Othello!

zurround — 2008-03-06T11:39:55+00:00

I came up with a neat idea, NEGATIVE Othello. The rules for placement of pieces do not change however you win the game by getting the LOWEST score. You may only pass your turn if you have no legal moves of course. I think it would be CHALLENGING!

Thread: Re: Othello/Reversi alternate scoring methods?

OldestManOnMySpace — 2008-02-23T08:12:30+00:00

You could make it so that corners count against your score. That would be weird.

Thread: A Portrait of the Koala as a...

drunkenKOALA — 2008-01-12T19:50:56+00:00

…LACONIC REVIEWER
Othello is a perfect information game for 2 players. Games usually last around 15 minutes, although serious games can last considerably longer.

It is originally invented by the Japanese Goro Hasegawa, with some slightly different rules under the name Reversi.

…LICENSED LAWYER
in which I go over the rules
Othello is played on a 8x8 board with the following starting position.
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Traditionally, black always starts. A legal move consists of a player placing a disc on an empty space such that the newly placed disc and another disc of the player already on the board flank opponent disc/s. He then flips over the opponent’s flanked disc over to his color. A legal move must be taken if there is one available. If there is none available, the player must pass.

There is no chain reaction. Flipped discs do not flip other discs.

The winner is the player with more discs in his color. The game ends when neither player has a legal move available. Generally, this happens when all 64 spaces on the board have been played. Although the following scenario could also trigger the game’s end:

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…AVID GAMER
in which I detail my personal experience with the game, including the dismissal and subsequent enlightenment
I first played Othello when I was around twelve years old. It came with a computer game the name of which presently eludes me. (Freddy Bear and Putt Putt’s Interactive Games?) I know the software had many perfect information games (among others were checkers and dots and boxes), and that you played either against a bear or a talking car. The game of Othello was played against the fat bear, who scratched his butt when he was “thinking”. There were 4 levels of difficulty, and it wasn’t long before I could beat the bear repeatedly on “hardest”. Game solved--I wiped my hands and moved on.

Years later while in college, I played the same game face to face with my uncle. He beat me, consistently. I then realized there is a lot more to this game than I first thought, went home, found an online portal (ludoteka.com), and started playing. I also did some googling for “Othello strategy”. What I learned changed my perception of the game completely; and with the better understanding came real appreciation. (I hardly appreciated the game prior to that.) I detail the basic Othello knowledge necessary to truly appreciate the game in the strategy section below.

…MATH PROFESSOR
in which I go over the basic strategies
A common newbie mistake is to flip over as many discs as possible on every turn. However, this strategy is next to useless because scoring isn’t cumulative (points are added once at the end of the game, not after each turn), and consequently it is only the final color of the disc that counts, not how long it spent as each color during the game. Instead, a much better approach is to set up the board in a position where one can make the final flip on as many discs as possible. This can be achieved in two ways: control of corners and parity.

stable disc: a disc that can never be flipped.

Corner discs are stable the moment they are played. They are never flipped during the game. The fact that control of corners is permanent makes seizing them in the first place that much more valuable. But how are corners valuable? A line of discs of the same color along the border is stable if, and only if, a disc on either end of the line is a corner disc. In other words, having corners helps one gain stable discs on the edges. Why should we care? Because the edges are deceptively large: there are 28 edge spaces, and 36 non-edge spaces. There is a saying in Go that the center is never as large as it seems. The same thing applies to Othello. This can mean both physically, and mentally in the sense that aiming to create stable discs in the center is way harder than it is on the edges.

Notice how by occupying the corners, black and white create stable discs on the edges.
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Another way to ensure that one has the “final say” on the flipping is forcing parity. In the late game, the playable area will be divided into the four corners, with each area having a specific number of empty spaces left. It is usually better to place the final disc in each of these areas, to get that final flip in each area. Ideally, we want to leave all the areas playable by the opponent with an even number of spaces at the end of our turn.

In the following position, black should play on the right corner first. The left area is unplayable to white. By playing on the right corner first, black can play the last disc in that area, force white to pass, and also be the first and last to play in the odd spaced left area.

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C squares: the 8 squares that are orthogonally adjacent to the corners.
X squares: the 4 squares that are diagonally adjacent to the corners.

There are exceptions, especially in the late game, but in the early and mid game it is rarely advisable to play on C or X squares. Why? Because corners are good, and the only way your opponent can play into a corner is if a C or X square is occupied by a disc of your color.

More specifically, an isolated C square can be attacked in the following situations. Black is guaranteed respectively the upper right and lower right corners no matter what white does.
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Another way C square discs can be taken advantage of is wedges. Consider the following position, where white can wedge in between black’s edge discs on the right and gain control of the lower right corner.

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unbalanced edge: 5 adjacent discs of the same color on an edge, none of which is a corner disc.

Black has an unbalanced edge on the left border.
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A common form of wedging is the exploiting of the unbalanced edges. When the opponent takes the corner on the “lighter” side of his unbalanced edge, he creates a wedge for you to take the other corner, plus the edge discs in between the two corners.

Black took the upper left corner, but his unbalanced edge allows white to wedge in and take the left edge and the lower left corner.
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A X square disc played in the early game can be taken advantage of even more easily. Simply have a disc of one’s color along the corresponding diagonal and one can readily take the corner.

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In essence, the heart of Othello is to be the last player to be forced into playing these poor, fatal moves (moves that will grant the opponent corners/stable edges). To achieve this, one wants as many possible “safe” moves to choose from as possible.

mobility: number of legal moves available to a player

Because a player must always flip an opponent disc on his turn, having more opponent discs adjacent to empty squares grants one more moves. So in general, and this is perhaps counterintuitive, it’s actually better to have less discs on the board. However, because one needs discs to flank opponent discs, having too few can also limit one’s mobility. In general, it is better to have as less external discs as possible, and dangerous to have absolutely no internal discs. A move that flips only internal and no external discs is often an excellent one. (Note that the internal disc became internal only after the new disc was played.)

internal disc: a disc that is not adjacent to any empty square.
external disc: a disc that is adjacent to an empty square.

center: set of internal discs.
frontier: set of external discs.

influence: a player’s disc exerts influence when it forces him to flip discs in multiple directions after a move.

Influence is usually a bad thing because flipping discs in multiple directions often result in one’s extending his frontier and losing significant amount of mobility. Moreover, it is also a threat for one to be forced to flip over certain fatal discs (usually the X square discs).

One can also increase one’s mobility relative to the other player by gaining tempo on a particular edge. This is done by forcing an odd number of safe moves in an edge region (with you playing the final odd space in that region), resulting in the opponent having to initiate play (and flip discs to his color) elsewhere and extending his frontier.

In the following situation, white can play either F7 or F8 in the bottom region. If he plays F7, black can respond with F8 and that’d exhaust the safe playable spaces in that region (all other gives a corner to the other player). However, if white plays F8, black can respond with F7, G8, or a move in another region. Respectively, white can respond in turn with B8-G8, F7, or F7. This gained white extra move/s (tempo) in the bottom region.
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Note however, by using the tempo, white may create an edge with a heavy influence, a possible positional disadvantage for future turns.
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Regarding player advantage, I feel that white is slightly favored because of parity.

…ARTISTIC ARBITER
in which I grade the component quality

My copy of the game
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I have the Mattel version, and it is of great quality. The board is covered with green cloth (or some soft fuzzy material), and each space is dented to keep the played discs in place. The discs are concaved to allow for easier handling and flipping.

The only minor concern is that discs can get scattered inside the box because even though there is a storage pit for the discs, there is nothing to hold them in place.

…QUIRKY MARSUPIAL
in which I express my preference for certain variants over others.
Othello can actually be played on a 6x6, 10x10, or any other sized board that one pleases. But I prefer the 8x8 board by far. The 10x10 board is too large that many of the initial moves feel very pointless. The 6x6 is too small and feels too “solvable” by brute force and takes away the strategic element.

Thread: Re: "Reversi" is available on DirecTV

milomilo122 — 2007-12-11T05:50:47+00:00

sweet!

and twixter: come back to the ig game center! I misssss youuuuuu!!!!

Thread: "Reversi" is available on DirecTV

twixter — 2007-12-09T22:16:53+00:00

For DirecTV satellite receivers, if you pay an extra fee you can play games with other users, or against your television. "Reversi" is one of the games offered. As far as I can tell, this is identical to Othello, with the four tokens in the center at the start, and you are allowed to play only where you would flip at least one opposing token. If you don't pay the extra fee, you are allowed to download the program and play against it for a few moves, then it tells you the demo time is over.

You can access a leader board, which lists the top 10 players. First place has a score something like 220 000 which is the highest score. I have no idea how this would correspond to an ELO rating.

If anyone has further info about this DirecTV feature, I would love to hear it! But I probably wouldn't want to buy it until they offer Hex...

Thread: Re: 4x4 Othello: Is it Playable?

quantumplation — 2007-11-09T20:43:28+00:00

jaredhayter wrote:
I see. I'll have to try it myself to convince myself that it's true, but it's easily conceivable. I love the game but I can't get any live opponent to play. I can't convince my gaming friends that Othello is indeed the brain-burner of the century.

Othello is a fine game. the large boards may improve its playability because the corners end up further away, making it more of a struggle to aquire them, and perhaps making them less relevent as they will have less influence on the area within due to more colour pockets and the like. I would be interested in trying 12x12 variants. Hell, why not play 18x18 on the spaces of a go board? =)

Thread: Re: 4x4 Othello: Is it Playable?

jaredhayter — 2007-11-09T20:29:16+00:00

I see what you're saying. Well, thank you both for the input.

I like abstracts that play on tiny boards so I'm always on the lookout for new micro-abstract possibilities.

Thread: Re: 4x4 Othello: Is it Playable?

wmshub — 2007-11-09T20:26:08+00:00

Think about it.

Start:
[c]....
.O#.
.#O.
....[/c]
Move 1:
[c].#..
.##.
.#O.
....[/c]
Move 2:
[c]O#..
.O#.
.#O.
....[/c]
Looks pretty hard for # to win, wouldn't you say?

Thread: Re: 4x4 Othello: Is it Playable?

quantumplation — 2007-11-09T20:02:46+00:00

Okay, I botched this post so many times.

What I meant to say is that in the 4x4 game, white can force the win.

There!

Thread: 4x4 Othello: Is it Playable?

jaredhayter — 2007-11-09T19:55:30+00:00

I know that 6x6 Othello exists in the form of Junior Othello and Othello Car-Go but I'm curious if anyone has played 4x4 Othello and found it to be a playable game on its own. I ask this because I play a fair amount of Othello online (at Bug Cafe) and I've found that the opening game between skilled players usually amounts to a fight for control of the center 16 squares. These squares are also delineated on my Mattel board from the early eighties with hoshi-like corner markings. If you have a similar board you'll know what I'm talking about. I assume these marking exist as a strategic reminder but since I've seen that the center can be lost or won in the early game and winning it is usually achieved by taking it's corner squares I wonder if the fight for the center could be treated as its own game. I realize of course that a game of full Othello plays quickly when playing live but most of my play experience is on a turn-based server where it might take a week to complete the battle for the center 16 squares.

For tha matter, does anyone play the game on a larger surface? How would playing a 10x10 or 12x12 game be different from 8x8?

Thread: Re: Strategy Book

Raid1280 — 2007-10-16T04:33:19+00:00

Also check out these links on wikipedia. There are 2 absolutely excellent books on Othello strategy. These are the two most exhaustive sources for printed strategy I have yet to find.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reversi

Look near the end of the page under links. There are two pdf files:

A Minute to Learn - A Lifetime to Master, Brian Rose, 2005
From Beginner to Master, Randy Fang, 2003

Thread: Re: Reversi != Othello

mitnachtKAUBO-I — 2007-10-03T06:24:41+00:00

The Reversi set from which the above "Rule #4" was drawn is the Invicta Games "Passport Games" edition dating from 1973. It contains rules in English, German, Italian, and Spanish -- all of which include Rule #4. I suspect that different publishers have included different rule sets over the years. Apparently some work better than others.

Thread: Re: Strategy Book

CrocWrestler — 2007-09-07T07:12:22+00:00

http://www.usothello.com/publications.php

At this website you'll find information about Othello Quarterly, and the handbook "Othello: Brief and Basic."

Thread: Strategy Book

youngtiffani — 2007-09-07T05:53:25+00:00

Does anyone know of a good Othello strategy book? Or even a good website for strategy? I haven't been playing the game that long. But I am interested in learning more about how to think about the game.

Thank you!

Thread: Re: Reversi != Othello

snej — 2007-07-27T04:30:29+00:00

I played Reversi a lot as a kid (I had, still have, a 1970s Ravensburger set with nice wood pieces) and I have no memory of a rule like #4 (being able to put a piece anywhere). I agree that it would mess up the game.

But I remember when Othello came out, and was discovered to be nearly identical to Reversi, and the major difference in the rules that was mentioned is that in one of the games you are allowed to capture pieces in all directions at once, whereas in the other you can only capture a single line of pieces (you have to choose which if there are multiple choices.)

But I can't remember which game is which. If forced to make a decision, I'd wager that Othello allows multiple directions and Reversi doesn't.

May I also add that I think it's silly for the canonical name on BGG to be "Othello" instead of "Reversi", since the latter came first by about a century.

Thread: Re: Diagonals

jaredhayter — 2007-05-18T21:24:17+00:00

A diagonal play is just as valid as an orthogonal one.

Thread: Re: Othello/Reversi alternate scoring methods?

Taavet — 2007-04-09T15:06:26+00:00

Great ideas. Yea after posting this thread I did some online research and apparently there are several popular variants like the one you listed where you have to get a line of 8.

There is also reverse othello where you try to have the least amount of your color, and another called Ataxx (which is listed here on the Geek as a separate game.

All very interesting for me. Thanks again.

Thread: Re: Othello/Reversi alternate scoring methods?

Badgeroonie — 2007-04-08T08:31:59+00:00

I have heard of one variant where rather than playing until the board is full, you play until someone has a straight line of 8 discs all their colour.

I guess you could also say first to reach 25 squares or so is the winner, but this might give too much advantage to the first player.

How about different areas of the board only coming into play after a particular number of moves?

Thread: Othello/Reversi alternate scoring methods?

Taavet — 2007-04-07T19:03:44+00:00

I am currently looking at some basic games and trying to analyze them and see how different methods of scoring would effect the game play. The goal being to better understand how certain mechanics or victory conditions can change a game (for better or worse).

Besides counting the disks at the end and whoever has the most wins, what would be another way of scoring this game and how do you think it would effect the play? And try to suggest a scoring method which doesn't adjust the components.

For instance some that I thought of:
1) Using scrabble type scoring where certain spots on the board score double/triple points. The victory condition being whoever has the most points and not necessarily most disks of your color showing. This would change the mechanics and create a whole new game.
2) Or scoring based on areas. Such as a group of 5 black disks scores 10 points and a group of 12 black disks scores 30. This would cause players to try to increase the size of their groups or cut the other opponents groups in half to make them smaller. Larger groups get more points.
3) Something like #2 but instead of groups, certain formations would have to be created. Depending on what the formation was and how hard it was to achieve you would score points.

What do you think? How would these different scoring methods effect the game? Any other ideas?

Depending on how well this thread goes I think it would be interesting to do the same thing with other common games. I guess people have already done this with Risk/Monopoly and that's how we have all the variants.

Thread: Othello Tournaments

Raid1280 — 2007-01-22T15:27:31+00:00

Does anyone have any information about, or would be interested in an Othello tournament? I live in Toledo, Ohio and am interested in participating, or hosting a tournament. Also if there are any other players in the area I would be interested in playing.

Thread: US Othello Association

Raid1280 — 2007-01-22T15:23:08+00:00

Hello everyone. Does anyone know if the US Othello Association is even up and running anymore? I've emailed them and they have not responded for some time.

www.usothello.com

If anyone has any info let me know, thanks!

Thread: Re: Reversi != Othello

gaspode — 2007-01-15T14:37:49+00:00

Pitch wrote:
2) This is really a useless modification, because the "parallel" starting position is rather unbalanced, and the "diagonal" starting position would be the only one automatically chosen by the players. So Goro Hasegawa made a good thing to choose a fixed starting position.

Ironicaly the diagonal starting position was considered badform and forcing it, if you were white, was deemed unsporting

Thread: Othello - A Light Review

Neil Thomson — 2007-01-03T05:16:30+00:00

All of my reviews aim to offer a brief overview that allows people to get a good feel for what the game may offer them. I feel that other reviews can be sought if detailed game mechanics is what you are after.

Othello is another classic (almost iconic) abstract strategy game that seems to have been around forever. In fact so much so that it is one of the few strategy games owned by one of the major toy companies dating back to our own childhoods, Mattel.

Othello comprises of a board made up of 64 grid squares on a green background. The only other component are two sets of 32 round disks, one side is black and the other white. Each player receives their own set of disks and 4 disks are placed in the middle of the board, two white and two black, diagonally across from each other.

On a player’s turn they must place one disk onto the board showing their colour that traps an opponent’s disc or discs between two of their own. When discs are captured in this way they are turned over to show the colour of the player who made the capture, thus improving their position. Captures can be made only in a straight line running vertically, horizontally or diagonally. Clever players may be able to place a disk in such a way that multiple captures are made in multiple directions.

If a disc cannot be played to affect a capture then the player forfeits their turn. The game ends when both players cannot place a disc to create a capture. This may occur before all 64 squares are filled. The player’s then count up the number of disks showing their colour. The player with the most disks showing their colour wins.

The Final Word

Othello comes from that classic mould of abstract strategy games that offer limitless options and variable play. The game can be learned in 2 minutes but never be mastered. Highly appealing to those players that enjoy Chess, Checkers, Backgammon and other abstract games.

Thread: Re: A Minute To Learn... A Lifetime To Master

Pitch — 2006-10-11T17:29:29+00:00

Good comment by Ed Collins.
Unfortunately, as other comments clearly declare, this game is instead underrated and completely unknown.

If compared with other classic boardgames, this is far more strategic and less tactic, but the balance between strategy and tactic changes from the beginning to the end of the game, when the board becomes more and more crowdy: strategic at the beginning, tactic at the end.

All the midgame anyway is very strategic, compared for example with chess and checkers, and this gives the opportunity to play well even without studying long sequences of moves.

Reguarding complexity of the game, calculated by the average number of allowed moves per turn, it is less then go and chess but more then checkers.

Reguarding programs, yes: there are many programs, but they are not simply "brute force" to calculate the number of discs. No computer has calculated the perfect game yet, although there are many indication that lead to that idea that it ends with a draw. Obviously programs are stronger than humans, but this doesn't take anything away from the beauty of this game.

There are regular world othello championships all over the world, where you can find the best players ever: you can find a list of them at http://www.worldothellochampionships.com (nice domain, eh?)

You can look for online gaming in dozens of places, but you can start from http://www.kurnik.org for online playing and http://www.littlegolem.net for turn playing, there are good players there.

For information on tournaments or anything else, you can start from one of the many good sites, for example the Italian Federation: http://www.fngo.it
There is also a very good tutorial here: http://www.claudiosignorini.it/othello/corso

If you look for programs, try WZebra http://www.radagast.se/othello/download.html or my own-made Happy End http://www.fngo.it/happyend.asp .

All the links I wrote here, please note, are completely FREE.

It's a pity to see Othello with such a low score here on BGG. It is the best game of the world. It's really fantastic. Please play it.

Thread: Re: Reversi != Othello

Pitch — 2006-10-11T17:10:51+00:00

As I know, this difference doesn't exist.
Actually I don't even know if somewehere there are written official rules for the game Reversi. As far as I have heard reversi was a forgotten game as soon as it was represented with the new name in the 70's.

Supposing that the differences are real, then the first 3 differences are certainly light, while the 4th one is devastating.

From my experience (I play othello tournaments since 15 years now) I'd like to give an opinion about them.

1) This modification would completely change the endgame strategy. Although it may look like a small variation, in a tight game being able to "close" the opponent and make him pass is a very strong tactic element. If this is balanced by the fact that I'll have to give back my pass because I'll end the discs, it would even become a negative point. For black making the white pass is very important, while in this way the black would really be disadvantaged. Goro Hasegawa made a good choice in making the discs common.

2) This is really a useless modification, because the "parallel" starting position is rather unbalanced, and the "diagonal" starting position would be the only one automatically chosen by the players. So Goro Hasegawa made a good thing to choose a fixed starting position.

3) This is obviously true.

4) This is dramatic. If a change of this kind would be applied, the game would simply not work. I tried many othello variants and this one was one of the most boring and static ones. One of the most important, if not the most important, point in othello strategy is mobility, aka the number of choices each player has. In this way, each player has always dozens of moves. Another very important point is stable discs (aka discs that cannot be flipped anymore because of their position). I's very easy to gain stable discs if you simply can put your discs there.
This variant is absolutely unplayable and for this reason I believe that original reversi rules didn't contain this one. Absolutely.

I hope it can be useful, contact me or look for any good othello site all over the world for information: there are hundred of pages of strategy documentation and a lot of online gaming sites.

Thread: Re: Diagonals

spacerx — 2006-10-10T01:48:17+00:00

a placed piece can affect a opponent's pieces diagonally. as long as a straight, uninterupted line can be drawn from your just placed piece to another of your pieces with opponent's pieces in between the two, then it works.

Thread: Diagonals

Hisst Ka — 2006-10-10T00:30:46+00:00

Can you place a disc to diagonally flank your opponent, or do you have to place to the top/bottom/side?

Per the rules diagrams it looks like diagonal flips only occur as a by-product to a top/bottom/side flanking placement...

Thread: Re: Reversi != Othello

Octavian — 2006-07-03T18:19:56+00:00

Salt-Man Z wrote:
Weird. Gaspode's thread isn't listed under any of the forums; it's like it's floating around without a home:

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/article/24886

Fixed

-MMM

Thread: Re: Reversi != Othello

Salt-Man Z — 2006-07-03T14:20:03+00:00

Weird. Gaspode's thread isn't listed under any of the forums; it's like it's floating around without a home:

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/article/24886

Thread: Reversi != Othello

mitnachtKAUBO-I — 2006-07-03T06:51:16+00:00

I'm unable to post in the thread called ARRGH!!! Reversi and Othello are not the same!. Therefore, I've started a new thread here...

gaspode wrote:
There are three main differnces between Othello, and pure Reversi.
1) Othello uses a central pool of counters, in reversi each player has their own pool, and when that runs out they can no longer place pieces.

2)Reversi starts with an empty board, and the first four moves fill the centre spaces in one of two paterns. Othello allways starts with four pieces in the middle of the board.

3) Othello is still in copyright, Reversi is not.
4) In Reversi (at least according to the rule set I have) you are allowed to place a piece as long as it is adjacent to at least one piece owned by your opponent. Unlike Othello it does not need to result in any pieces being flipped. This is a huge difference between the games.

I think it's silly that Othello Junior has its own BGG entry, but Reversi, which has at least 3 distinct rules differences (1, 2, and 4 above), does not.

Thread: Re: A Minute To Learn... A Lifetime To Master

mpw182 — 2006-03-20T14:26:43+00:00

I enjoy playing this game but saying it is deep is kind of a stretch. The game is pure look-ahead, and if you don't set some kind of time limit on turns you end up with analysis-paralysis. Don't get me wrong this game can be light fun. However, a simple computer program could be written for this game that could beat a human player every time, and unlike chess it wouldn't need Big Blue to run it just any old 486 would do.

O_O

Thread: Re: ARRGH!!! Reversi and Othello are not the same!

megamau — 2006-02-17T04:28:37+00:00

I think the site must find a balance between precision and avoiding "scattering" of the informations. Expecially abstract strategy games have often many variants but it makes sense to radune them under a common name for concentrating the comments, the ratings and so on.
Think about checkers. The difference between the various version (english draughts, international checkers, italian chekers) are surely much greater than the ones between othello and reversi, yet they are under the same entry.

Thread: Re: ARRGH!!! Reversi and Othello are not the same!

Dementomstie — 2006-02-17T01:08:57+00:00

gaspode wrote:
There are three main differnces between Othello, and pure Reversi.
1) Othello uses a central pool of counters, in reversi each player has their own pool, and when that runs out they can no longer place pieces./q]
I have never played with a central pool for Othello, We always play with the pieces set in their trays which each have 32 discs. We have had games where one player runs out of pieces but it's not very common for us. It may be stated in the rules that all the pieces are to be put into a central pool, but every version I've seen has some sort of tray on either side of the board which holds the 32 discs of each player for them very nicely making the "central pool" rule moot when playing because you probably won't think to draw from your opponant's side on the last turns of the game if you're playing like that, it doesn't seem to fit very well with the rest of game thinking. If for example you were playing checkers you wouldn't reach across and grab a piece that's been taken off the board, this seems ridiculous thinking and would have the kind of response as reaching over to "my" pool of discs.
The only big thing that I see that is a difference for Reversi and Othello is the bit about having a blank starting board, this could easily make the game very different.

Thread: "Car-Go Othello" isn't Othello, but Othello Jr.

Dementomstie — 2006-02-10T19:27:13+00:00
I was very excited when I found a copy of a new version of Travel Othello, I had this game with me almost everyday in High School until there was a stampede of people that ran towards us and I lost enough pieces to have only 63 rather than 64. So, now years later I find "Car-Go Othello" and excitedly buy it, but find that it only has a 6X6 board which I think is strange since Othello is supposed to be 8X8. It plays the same but I found here on the Geek that the 6X6 board was already used by "Junior Othello" and has been solved, the second player always wins. This confirms the few plays I've had and I don't think it would be too bad if my friends and I weren't so adamant about the game, we love othello and now my victories over Marci are false because they were the game's victories and not mine.
"Car-Go Othello" is fun, but not quite the same. Now I have to go find a way to get that last Travel Othello piece.

Thread: Schooling a newbie

daw65 — 2005-12-19T06:26:10+00:00
I was the last to arrive (though we didn't really know it at the time). When I showed up, Carrie was watching Alice and Gil play a game of Othello.

When I arrived the game was well underway, and Alice already had a pretty strong position. She had possession of one corner, with a strong grasp of much of each side of that corner. This was Gil's first time playing this one, and Carrie was at the table trying to help him out, but apparently she got distracted at some point, because Alice was able to claim a second corner. Since you can only flip if you have a piece on the other end of the line you're "capping", the corner is very important, as it makes it easier to flip the side rows to your color, which gives you more opportunities to flip more pieces.

Gil started making some headway on the side opposite Alice's two corners, and in fact did manage take the third corner. Careful play enabled him to claim much of the three rows near that corner. But since it is an 8" x 8" board, three rows wasn't going to be enough, and when the last piece was played, Alice had a strong win, with 42 pieces to Gil's 22.

Thread: Re: A Minute To Learn... A Lifetime To Master

Philip Thomas — 2005-12-18T20:36:35+00:00
Nice Review, I haven't progressed beyond the 'edges' stage yet...

One carp- I think it can be argued that Othello is part of the group of games that take a minute to learn, a lifetime to master. In fact, you yourself are arguing it

Thread: Re: A Minute To Learn... A Lifetime To Master

GeoMan — 2005-12-18T13:15:13+00:00
Onceler wrote:
Why it gets a game weight rating of less than 2 on the Geek is one of those Geek mysteries.

Because it takes more than a couple of games to realize that turning the most stones to your color during your turn is not a good way to play.

With further games you understand that the edge and corners are important.

You will win a couple of games if you focus on corners/edges but until you understand what "good positioning" is and that you have to make sacrifices, you will lose to better players.

Thread: Re: A Minute To Learn... A Lifetime To Master

GeoMan — 2005-12-18T13:05:05+00:00
A good Reversi shareware program can be found here:

http://www.blochweb.com/reversi.htm

Thread: Re: A Minute To Learn... A Lifetime To Master

Onceler — 2005-12-18T08:54:50+00:00
Great write up, and I agree . . . if you aren't thinking 3 or 4 moves out, or more, for every turn in Othello, then you are not really playing Othello. I have yet to see the bottom of this game.

Why it gets a game weight rating of less than 2 on the Geek is one of those Geek mysteries.