OTHELLO
Traditional
Modern Rules: Copyright (c) 1971 Goro Hasegawa
Othello is a two player game played on a 8x8 square board, with the following setup:
|
| An example
[source] White has small mobility. How can Black achieve some advantage? Black plays at cell [1]. If White drops at h2, then Black continues with g3, then White must move g2, and Black has a superior advantage. If White drops at g3, then Black h7, White g7, Black h2, White g2, and Black wins again! |
Quoting the Othello FAQ: The origin of Othello is not known. We have not seen any proof of rumors that Othello arose from an old Chinese game called ``Fan Mian'' (claimed in E. O. Harbin, "Games of Many Nations", Abingdon Press, 1954). Lewis Waterman and John W. Mollett (both of London, England) both marketed games with similar rules in 1880. Mollett's game was called Annexation and was played on a cross-shaped board. Waterman's game was called Reversi and played on the familiar 8x8 square board. It is unclear whose version came first, but Waterman's board and name are in use today. The official rules are here.
Othello is one the most popular abstract games in the net. A twin game is Reversi where the board begins empty, and both players alternate in dropping the 4 stones in the center board square.
Other related games are MacBeth
,
Gomullo
(on a NxN board, win by making a N in-a-row),
Desdemona
(there are grey stones. When a player flips an enemy stone, it becomes grey. If
a player flips a grey stone, it becomes a friendly stone.),
and Iago
(players initially place neutral obstacles on empty cells that cannot be
flipped).
Another variant, called Sacrifice Reversi (by Patrick
Duff) with an extra rule: Instead of making a regular Reversi move, a player
can choose to flip one of his own stones on board. There's also a KO rule to
avoid repetitions.
Reversi can be mixed with Seega (let's call it Reveega) on a NxM board. First phase, play just like Othello. When the board is full, the next player to move removes one stone and the other player continues by playing like Seega (moving to empty cells with custodian captures). When both players reach a sterile position, wins who captured more stones.
A Bill Taylor's Reversi variant, 1-11 Reversi, present a game where each player makes three moves on each turn in the following sequence: one friendly drop, one enemy drop and one friendly drop. In the end, the final game score is a legal Reversi game. Here is a game sample where the first player won 33-31 after some desperate final moves (I underlined the moves of the second player to ease the reading):
a b c d e f g h
o o o o o o o x 1 d4 e4 11 g8 h8 21 b8 c8 31 b3 --
x x x x o o x o 2 d5 e4 12 g4 d6 22 d8 e8 32 g2 f2
x x x x o x o o 3 f5 c4 13 e7 f8 23 b4 h6 33 h1 33-31
x x x o x o o o 4 d3 f4 14 b2 a1 24 a5 a6
x x x x x x o o 5 e3 f6 15 c7 c6 25 a7 c5
x x x o x o o o 6 e6 d2 16 d7 c1 26 h4 f7
x x x x o o o o 7 d1 c3 17 b1 g1 27 a2 a4
x x x x o o o o 8 g5 e1 18 e2 b7 28 a3 g3
9 g6 g7 19 a8 b6 29 h3 h2
10 f1 h5 20 c2 h7 30 b5 f3
Another Taylor variant is Biversi. On a 10x10 toroidal board, with two reversi start patterns (one crossed and one parallel) set up antipodal to each other. Play mechanics and game object as at Reversi, but with a 1222 progressive mutator. The two moves per turn must be played one in each section as long as they remain disjoint; after which moves may be played anywhere legal.
Here is an initial Biversi game:
a b c d e f g h i j
o o . . x . . . . . 1. . c4 d4 g9
. o x x . . . . . . 2. d3 f10 i8 d2
o o o x . . . . . . 3. a1 g6 e1 b4
. o o x . . . . . . 4. b4 i7 j7 a5
x x x x o . . . x x 5. a7 e5 f6 j10
. o . . . o o . o o 6. j8 i9 b6 b1
o . . . . . o o o o 7. b3 b10 j6 i10
. . . . . . o o o o 8. j5 c5 d5 i5
. . . . . . x o x . 9. h9 i6
. o . . . x . . x o 10.
In Impartial Othello (by Jeff Erickson) either player can place a stone of either color and flip stones of the opposite color. The winner is determined by the color of the last stone. So if there are more white pieces, and the last player played white, he wins.
As in Macbeth, Revertello (by Fred Horn, 2004) uses an hexagonal board. The game starts with the following setup:
Revertello rules are as in Othello but with an exception: the player must pick only two directions to flip stones (from the six possible).
2013 K. Franklin's Level Two Reversi
states:
Black and White alternate dropping pawn or king disks. Pawns are placed on vacant squares; kings are placed over pawns. Each disk must be placed so that it sandwiches one or more enemy pieces between itself and another friendly piece, with no empty squares intervening. The sandwiched enemy pieces are flipped, changing colour. If one player can't move, he must pass his turn. The game ends when neither side can move, usually when the whole board is filled. The winner is the player with the most on-board pieces (both king and pawn disks) of his colour. ref
Fliporona
, a 2006 game by
Vincent Everaert mixes Othello with
the Fanorona rule of approach:
44 pieces are randomly dropped on the [Fanorona] board. A piece may move one position along a line. It may capture by approach: after it moves, an enemy piece (or an unbroken string of enemy pieces) adjacent to it along its line of movement are taken. It may instead capture by withdrawal: if it begins its move adjacent to an enemy piece (or unbroken string) and moves directly away, the enemy piece(s) are taken. Captured pieces are flipped. Capturing is not mandatory if a simple move is possible. A piece that just captured may make another capturing move, though it must change directions with every capture and (in this version) it may not immediately return to the point it just occupied. A piece may stop any time after making one or more captures, but at the start of the turn must play a capture if one exists. At the end of a capturing move, the capturing piece is removed from the board. The object is to capture all of the opponent's men or to stalemate them.
Army Checkers is 1943 war-themed version of Othello played in a 9x9 board.
Oddthello (uncredited and undated game) is a hexagonal boardless variant using hex-shaped bicolored pieces, where each new drop expands the playing area. Each player starts with 32 pieces. The initial setup is
x x
o o
so players start with the other 30 pieces in the reserve. Pieces can be dropped only where they flip one or more rows of enemy pieces. If a player does not have a valid move, he loses the game. When, and if, all pieces are dropped, wins the player with more stones. The game can be played in gamerz.net.
Pilf by Matteo Perlini (undated game) is played on a hexagonal board of size 7x13x7. After the first move, the second player can swap sides. On his turn, the player either drops a piece on an empty hex, or moves a friendly piece to an empty hex. Only after a movement, all enemy pieces adjacent to the moved piece (not the entire row) are flipped. At the end, wins the player with more pieces.
Gobs by Gérard Rousseau is a mix of Othello and Checkers. On a 9x9 board, each player starts with 27 pieces on their first three rows. Pieces move like Chess queens, and captures are either by replacement (the captured piece is removed) or by short jump (the jumped piece is flipped). Captures are not mandatory but can be multiple. Captures by replacement are not allowed if both pieces are adjacent. Wins the player that reduces the adversary army to six or less pieces. However, if the player is reduced to exactly five pieces, he still has one turn to respond.
Der Kraftkönig is a 1940 game by Walther Blachetta, published at Widukind-Verlag. The first player drops a friendly stone at the center. Then, starting from the second player, the players alternate by dropping stones on the remaining eight cells in the central 3x3 area. Then the game is played in the outer area. Captures are like Othello, flipping enemy stones. When both players pass, players get points for their stones: one point per stone at the outer area, three points in the inner eight cells, and nine points for the central square. Wins the player with highest score.
