Great entertaining game - Easy to Learn but a lifetime to Master (Othello)

Member Name: jpegington

Product:	Othello
Date:	19/12/06 (533 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Great fun, Easy to Learn, quick to play

Disadvantages: None

After my unexpected crown for my JENGA review (and many thanks everyone for that) I thought that I would continue with my theme of Games and thought that it was about time that I did a review on Othello.

ABOUT THE GAME:

Othello is a rather simple game to play which is suitable for most ages (official list says ages 8 and up, but I know that I was playing this at a younger age of 8). The phrase they use is that it is a game that takes minutes to learn but a lifetime to master and I do agree with this.

BASIC RULES OF THE GAME:

Othello is a simple board game played on a board with 64 squares (8 X 8) with A – H across the top and 1 – 8 down the side (not that it matters that much but is useful to have these labelled as such to make the explanations a little simpler). The game is played by two people, one being the white discs and one being the black discs. The aim of the game is to turn all of the discs on the board into your colour (i.e. all black or all white), but more about this in a minute as I go through the review.

HOW TO SET UP THE BOARD:

Now you should have with the game the basic green board (in my day this was made out of a nice felt, but later editions are much more cheaply made which is a shame) and a number of discs (black on one side and white on the other).

You set the board up with 4 discs in the middle of the board, two of them showing white and two showing black. If you have the board labelled as I mentioned above, then you should have a white disc on D4 and E5 and a black disc on D5 and E4 (meaning that the same colour is diagonal on the board).

You now have set up the board for the beginning of the game (simple isn’t it, not quite as complicated as chess for certain).

BEGINNING / PLAYING THE GAME:

OK, now I mentioned above that the aim of the game is to turn all of the discs on the board to your colour. Now in Othello black always begins first (and this can be an advantage as in all games, so we usually either toss a coin to see who starts or hold one disc in one hand behind your back and the opponent chooses a hand, if they find the disc in that hand then they are black and start).

The way you play Othello is to put your disc down into a position adjacent to a colour of your opponent. However the important thing to remember is that you must trap one or more your opponent’s discs in a straight line (Horizontal, vertical or diagonal) between the new disc you put on the board and an existing disc already there. So taking black as the first player to move, he can only place his disc in one of 4 places on the board (in order to be adjacent to a white disc and in a direct line to an existing black disc (for those who have labelled your board these 4 places would be C4, D3, E6 or F5). So giving that he places his piece on C4 (which is adjacent to D4 (where a white disc is sitting and in a direct line to another black disc on E4), you would then be able to claim the white disc as your disc and flip it over to a black disc. This means that as the first player you would then have 4 black discs in play and your opponent who has not played yet only 1 white disc.

It would then be the turn of your opponent to place a white disc down (again in a position adjacent to a black disc in a direct line of sight to the only existing white disc) and claim all of the trapped discs to white and flip them over. The game continues until you have covered the entire board with all of the discs, taking turns on placing a disc onto the board.

It is important to NOTE that you must place your disc adjacent to an existing disc of your opponent’s colour. This means that you cannot just automatically place the disc in the corner say (which would be a great advantage) but must work your way out of the board to the edges, trapping and flipping your opponents discs with each turn.

MORE DETAILS:

OK, you have now started playing the game and have been placing discs down on the board. It is important to remember a number of details as you are playing.

Firstly, you are only allow to claim (and therefore flip to your colour) trapped discs that become trapped due to the disc that you place that TURN. This is important as when the board becomes filled up, you will flip a disc to black and this would mean that no doubt some further white discs would be trapped between that flipped disc and others in another direction. However you can only claim discs that are trapped by an unbroken line of sight between the new disc placed and any discs on the board.

Secondly moving on from the first point is the issue that you can claim any trapped disc that becomes trapped as long as it is in direct sight with an existing one in all directions (so horizontal, vertical and diagonal). Therefore a good move can be placing a disc where you can turn over multiple discs in more than one direction so that you can trap and claim a maximum number of discs.

Thirdly, as I have mentioned you continue playing the game in alternate turns until the board is filled. Should an opponent not be able to play a legal move, then the other player can continue placing discs on the board until a legal move is available. It is possible therefore for a player to have to pass a number of times. The game has then finished when all of the board has been filled (or sometimes when neither player has a legal move left to make),

WINNING THE GAME:

Winning the game is simple. Once all of the discs have been placed and the game has finished, you count up all of the discs of your colour and the player with the most discs wins! (For all you excellent maths people our there you will no doubt have already worked out that if the board is full, then the person with more than 33 discs in their colour will have won! And that obviously a draw is possible with this game.)

STRATEGY OF THE GAME:

Now as you can see, the game is obviously very easy to play and understand and allows you to get playing very quickly. However it takes some time to work out the best future strategy as you begin to play the game.

Some quick tips for you:

1.) Go for the corners. It is clear that anyone who has a corner can no longer be flipped as that piece cannot be trapped. Therefore the corners are very often vital to winning the game. Therefore it is very important that you do not easily give away a corner by allowing your opponent to trap one of your pieces by placing his in a corner (obviously this is not always possible, but you should try to limit their opportunities and gain them for yourself).
2.) Try to get your pieces on the edges. The edges are usually very important as you can sometimes trap complete rows by placing your disc on an edge. This can allow you win the game in the long run, but beware that you do not lose all your edge pieces by your opponent gaining a corner piece (although if you keep control of the centre of the board this can still be OK).
3.) Sometimes the immediate placing a disc that allows you to trap and flip a large number of your opponent’s disc is not always the best move. You should always think ahead a couple of moves (or at least at what your opponents options will be) because if by his next move he can immediately place a disc and trap all of the discs you just turned (and maybe more) then it is pointless you making the previous move unless you can get a clearer advantage in the future again. Basically like all games you need to start getting in the habit of thinking some good two or three moves ahead.
4.) When placing your disc make certain that you flip all discs that you legally can. In other words make certain that you check horizontally, vertically and diagonally to make certain that you have not trapped other pieces then the ones that you first saw.

There are so many things that are important to learn but you will pick these up as you go along. All in all Othello is a very easy game to play and very enjoyable.

MY OPINION OF THE GAME:

As you will no doubt of realised by the attention that I have given above is that I absolutely love this game. I have been playing it from quite a young age (definitely from before the recommended age barrier) and have loved it ever since. It is such an easy game to learn and fun to play that I recommend it to all parents as you can spend some quality time with your children while having fun and they have a chance to actually beat you (unlike chess where an absolute beginning should never beat an experienced player, with Othello there is a chance). One of the things that I always enjoyed when I was growing up was that my parents always had time for me and played games with me and my brother and sister. I think this helped us as a family grow together and certainly allowed my parents to teach me good behaviour and good sportsmanship. Don’t take me wrong, I am very competitive, I love to win and hate to lose, but try to do both while staying a good sport, but I am slowly moving away from the point of this review so will stop there!

Othello is quite a fast game to play as it does not take long to either set it up or actually play it and therefore can be good to fill in some time when you need something to do.

As there are a number of discs and they need to stay on the squares where they are placed, this is not a game to play when travelling. I do not know whether there is a travel version, but would not recommend playing the normal version when in a car as the discs would just slide everywhere and make playing it very hard.

Over the years I have enjoyed this game and become reasonably good at it because I think a number of moves ahead, I still enjoy playing it with anyone as you still do get beaten. So there is always a level of competition within Othello that does not matter as much as to how experienced you are.

All in all Othello is a fun and great game to play and I recommend it to everyone. Hope you enjoyed this rather long review in the end and I look forward to reading any of your comments.

Summary: Othello is a fun and great game to play and I recommend it to everyone.