Othello.. a minute to learn.. a lifetime to master
Tuesday, August 30, 2005
No, no, I’m not talking about Shakespeare’s Othello. I’m talking about Othello one of the famous strategy board games, also known as Reversi. I started playing that game since I was 8 years old. I very well remember that first day I played it. It wasn’t that famous game in Egypt at these days. I’ve always seen my parents and their friends and relatives playing the game, was very interested to play it, but whenever I asked them to teach me the game, they used to tell me you are still young for it. Till that day that I insisted I should play it. 
That was the start, I proved to be a good player, opposite to what they thought. Since then I became addicted to the game up till now.
That went through many stages. First, I just knew the basics of the game, which made me play, but without making me win or be professional in the game. I used to lose all the games. Later, I started winning sometimes. But my father was the only one whom I never won.
From my continues play with my father, I knew some of the strategies and the tactics to win, and things became more interesting. I somehow became equal to my father in playing.
At many times I didn’t find anyone to play with me. I used to play with myself. That was such a very good way to get more professional in it. Used to spend hours on playing. I don’t travel except when I take it with me. I’ve got the big board and another pocket one, really obsessed.
At my third year at college, that playing experience proved to be of good use. Me and a group of friends developed an Othello game as our Artificial Intelligence project, though I didn’t do much of the development. During that stage, I discovered that Othello is a well known board game, it has federations and championships, but it’s not as famous as chess here in Egypt.
Playing Othello might be the only thing I feel I’m really good at, a good player that I win all games I play.
Brief game history can be found here.
The game rules and tactics can be found here and here.
You can download the game from here.
And that’s an Othello blog.
Enjoy, and if interested feel free to ask any question about it.
That was the start, I proved to be a good player, opposite to what they thought. Since then I became addicted to the game up till now.
That went through many stages. First, I just knew the basics of the game, which made me play, but without making me win or be professional in the game. I used to lose all the games. Later, I started winning sometimes. But my father was the only one whom I never won.
From my continues play with my father, I knew some of the strategies and the tactics to win, and things became more interesting. I somehow became equal to my father in playing.
At many times I didn’t find anyone to play with me. I used to play with myself. That was such a very good way to get more professional in it. Used to spend hours on playing. I don’t travel except when I take it with me. I’ve got the big board and another pocket one, really obsessed.
At my third year at college, that playing experience proved to be of good use. Me and a group of friends developed an Othello game as our Artificial Intelligence project, though I didn’t do much of the development. During that stage, I discovered that Othello is a well known board game, it has federations and championships, but it’s not as famous as chess here in Egypt.
Playing Othello might be the only thing I feel I’m really good at, a good player that I win all games I play.
Brief game history can be found here.
The game rules and tactics can be found here and here.
You can download the game from here.
And that’s an Othello blog.
Enjoy, and if interested feel free to ask any question about it.
posted by MoonLightShadow at 1:19 AM, | 
4 Comments:
i like that play alot.. i just got to b introduced to it just last year and by chance..
but since its a bit similar to "el sega" as alaa mentioned.. i find it a bit easy to play :)
but still i am a green weed..
may b we can play it together online moon.. or wht u think?! ;)
but since its a bit similar to "el sega" as alaa mentioned.. i find it a bit easy to play :)
but still i am a green weed..
may b we can play it together online moon.. or wht u think?! ;)
Alaa, yes, it's not difficult to master. That statement of "A minute to learn, a lifetime to master" is for real. And there are many ways of writing an AI code for it. It depends on the algorithm you are using.
I don't know about go, haven't played it before, and I don't know about sega se3edy either.
I don't know about go, haven't played it before, and I don't know about sega se3edy either.
Sure Blue, we can play it online together :)
go is supposed to be a most difficult game though (and its even similar to سيجة صعيدي)