Othello Lesson 2 - A minute to learn a life time to master

[@lukasvandewiel860]

Thanks for a great explanation. Feel free to leave out the background music, though.

[@spinedoc4U]

Thx for posting. These videos will prove to be more effective as you get more into the game. (For the experienced player looking to advance his/her game). Thx again David Giovanni/OCning

[@Othellolessons]

1 book: Google search: "Brian Rose Othello Book" 2 books: Google seach: "Randy Fang othello book" Avoid: "How to win at reversi" like the plague. Videos wise, whenever I have time really. I have one close to finished. David~~

[@Othellolessons]

Thanks!! Please point new players you come across in this direction :) Advanced stuff will come... but have to set the building blocks first.

[@thomashaan08]

Nice introduction to Othello! There is now a new game a in the spirit of Othello/Reversi called "Symmetry - The Board Game"! In this game one has to create symmetrical patterns on the board to gain an advantage. A web-demo of "Symmetry" can be played at the website of barefoot-coders cheers, Thomas

[@Othellolessons]

One thing I will say is that draughts does have the potential to go on forever if a stalemate position arises or if players dot understand how to win. So the game has the possibility to have far more combinations than Othello which is only ever going to have a maximum of 60 moves. I think Othello has more combinations and permutations however within 60 moves, though I cant prove this.

[@Othellolessons]

@davidnalba Hi David, its plastic. Those boards are given out to all new players who attend their first world championship and are the tournament standard. The board i use in lesson 6 is much nicer and is worth about £180. :)

[@premkothari694]

Is there anything like sandwich in Othello ...In which a player can't put his or her token It should be covered by two sides?????

[@Othellolessons]

@Zaphenath4 Nope, I am counting the number of possible options that are available. but the move that gets played removes all those options was the point i was trying to make.

[@Othellolessons]

I put a link to a programme called Wzebra in the info section. This is what top players use to practise. Also to playok where you can find others to play. Cheers Davd.

[@Othellolessons]

The best answer I can give is to maximise your move possibilities which is easiest to achieve by minimising your stone count. So Minimise. There's some subtleties beyond that but the basic principle doesnt change so not worth mentioning in the second video.

[@favc3]

started playing this game a week ago . and its a very good game . downloaded a few version on android . and i can seem to win agains highest difficulty (sometimes with undo last move) . but then it is a very nice game.

[@davidnalba]

Hi David, is a very nice board the one you use for the videos. The black extremes, of what material is made, wood, plastic...?. Thanks.

[@Othellolessons]

@tatomuck18 The strategy ive hinted at so far is slightly flawed. it implies that you should take a corner because its always good. This is actually wrong. It sounds like your opponent might be trying to even the game up (sorry). The simple rule is, if your opponent gives you a corner, dont take it. its a free move that can be taken any time. Take a corner on your terms and ensure that by taking it you are still in control of the game

[@joshpinto2658]

Are there any studies about the benefits of this game for cognitive function?

[@tatomuck18]

Is it ever good to intentionally give your opponent a corner EARLY in the game? I played some games where opponents would do some strange things and take an X square on purpose and right after I take the corner my opponent would immediatly run away from it so I cant build around it and somehow win later in the game.

[@OrangeDelight]

Please tell where i can play it online with other players...

[@moeper1936]

Orange Delight www.yucata.de

[@Othellolessons]

Hi David, to be honest i don't know too much about international draughts. I know that Othello and draughts have both been partially solved. That is perfect play has been found on smaller boards. but not on the 8x8 board of Othello and the 10x10 board of draughts it remains unsolved.

[@TappingTV]

I know this is a weird question, but I just started playing othello and was wondering if it is considered a "pure strategy" game. Ie, if you played someone inexperienced (like me), will you always win? Or is it somewhat odds based, like, if we played 100 games, you would win 90 of them? I also don't mean any offense from my question --- I play a lot of poker, and of course in poker, better players just have better odds (which is why they win in the long-run).

[@TheMiwaro]

so do you want to minimize or maximize...im confused....maybe a mix of both depending on the situation?

[@Othellolessons]

You're very welcome. Happy flipping. David ~

[@JohnL-m2l]

What is that song at the credits? It's really cool. Also, what online sites/apps were used as examples at the beginning of the video? I find it really annoying that Windows 7 doesn't have that Reversi app like Windows XP.

[@Othellolessons]

Hiya, It's in the credits: Patrice D'angelo - Acoustica The two sites you see are playok.com and flyordie.com

[@Othellolessons]

Can't say i have. I don't have an othello game automatically included with vista. Is it something you downloaded? where from?

[@Othellolessons]

As for strategy itself. I cant possibly comment and don't know anyone that plays both games, that I can ask. do you have any opnion?

[@Othellolessons]

Not that weird of a question. Just like in Chess if you rate two players using an ELO system the rating can be used to determine the likelihood of either player winning in any given game. However if you've just started and don't yet have a grasp of the basic strategic concepts, or haven't learnt any book openings, or aren't experienced enough to workout the end game, its probably likely that you would lose 100% of those games. As you learn that percentage will come down. David ~

[@NickMaovich]

I'm really diging into int. Are there any books about othello? Also going further on your lessons

[@davidnalba]

Hi David. Do you think that othello has more strategy depth than international draughts?.

[@tatomuck18]

how did you get othello on vista? I want it!

[@davidnalba]

Thanks for answering. Im a reversi player (bad player). I think the strategy complexity of othello is higher than checkers 8x8 but im not sure about international draughts, that has a bigger board and more rules. If you google "game complexity", there is an article in wikipedia that explains this, but i didnt understand it very well (im a spanish speaker). Maybe you can interpretate it. Thanks a lot.

[@wilhalim2825]

what online reversi do u play i wanna have match with u

[@davidnalba]

Yeah you are right. Lesson 6 board is beautiful. And in tournaments chess clocks are used?. Because i saw a "fide" logo in yours. PD: are you planning to do more videos?

[@Othellolessons]

However if you go down this route then i think you miss out on some understanding because typically you will have to memorise a few openings and stick to them and never deviate. Meaning that you never really understand opening strategy properly.

[@lidonn]

Very nice video.I'm waiting to see some advanced techniques in the future videos. :)

[@Othellolessons]

This is hard to answer, because as with draughts below i dont have any concept of how much effort is required to learn chess. Id be of the opinion though that if you really wanted to you could get playing Othello at a fair level with some intensive practise in about 3 months.

[@daniellee6912]

i thought the corners were the most important

[@VictorFoote01]

Me too!

[@Othellolessons]

@littlteapot Thanks! What you've hit on there is in my opinion the hardest part of the game. Ideally if I could find the time I would finish off the opening theory and then jump to the endgame I think its easier and more important to cover that off next. Edge play is part of the mid-game and last thing I would cover. So a long way off. Sorry! To show how difficlut it is, heres something i started ages ago and never finished othello.dk/book/index.php/Edge_Configuration

[@Othellolessons]

@tatomuck18 Hi again Tato, Its true there is a possibility that if your not careful you could get wiped out. but in fact it actually quite unlikely that you will as long as your sensible. If your locking your pieces in the middle of the 'bunch' as the next videos start to explain then its hard for your opponent to start taking all of them, if that's their aim. Which will fail them in the long run .

[@NickMaovich]

Thank you dude! Keep on!

[@SGFlicksify]

Thinks. Pity about distracting background music, tho - ruins it.

[@Othellolessons]

@davidnalba Yes on both accounts ;)

[@JohnL-m2l]

Thanks :) Great vids.

[@aziiiiiiiiiiiiii]

Thanls

[@tatomuck18]

If you dont take enough peices in the beginning, you could easily be wiped out with nothing left.

[@Othellolessons]

Hi William, You will find me at playok.com under the alias Cheekytrax.

[@SonnyGTA]

A minute to learn. 9 min video.

[@aumshreeshah2322]

Binod OP