Learning About Othello The Board Game

Othello, marketed and made known by Pressman, also called Reversi, is an excellent board game that involves use of abstract strategy. The board game is played by 2 players using a board. The board consists of 8 columns and rows plus some unique play pieces for each side. Playing pieces look like small smooth discs in which one side is a light in shade and the other is dark, one side for each player. The primary goal of the players is to make sure by turning them over, that at the game’s end more of their discs are showing than their opponents.

As the game progresses and the players keep making their wisest moves, they have to trap the other one’s discs in a way that the discs cannot escape. But be aware that even the opponent is free to do that and so it is a kind of a deception. Pieces will keep showing your color or the opponent’s color every now and then as the game moves and ultimately the winner of the game is the one who has most of the pieces of his color showing and when no more moves can or pieces can be played on the board.

Reversi originally did not posses a well defined start position. In the Othello board game, the rules state that the game starts with four markers positioned on a square right in the centre of the grid with the two same colored discs placed diagonally opposite, belong to the same player and the other two belonging to the other player. This means that two diagonally opposite discs will be of the same color. The player with the darker shade plays or begins first.

A company called Texwood used the Othello board game as a means to advertise for its Apple Jeans in Hong Kong. The game was given a new title as ‘Ping Guo Qi’ or Apple Chess. The success of this advertising campaign increased the popularity of Othello board game at least 10%.

The version of the Othello board game that we see today is originally attributed to the game called reverse. Reversi was invented by one of the two Englishmen John W. Mollett or Lewis Waterman. The exact inventor is still not known as the each one of them called the other one fraudulent. The game gained considerable fame during the late 19th century in England and was mentioned outwardly for the first time on August 21st 1886 in “The Saturday Review”.

A little later it was also mentioned in an article written in the New York Times in 1895 named – Reversi is something like Go Bang, and is played with 64 pieces. In 1893, Ravensburger, a widely known German publisher of board games began producing the Othello board game as one of his first titles. It is a great game to apply your mind to and gives great satisfaction if you win of course!

Othello is an ideal game to keep you and your youngsters entertained on rainy days and is readily available in toy shops and on the Internet.

Click on skill games for more game reviews and some free online games. When the fun and games are over and you want to relax in front of the television just wave the magic wand remote control to switch your programmes on.