Origin of Othello?
Here's a topic that got a lot more interesting than expected. Where did the game Othello come from? You know, the one with the chips that are black on one side and white on the other, and when you trap opponent pieces between two of yours, you flip all their pieces. It's a classic game, plenty of fun an frustrations. An oddly simple game that I completely suck at. Every time I try to think ahead I end up giving away more spaces.
Let's ask the World Othello Federation. Oops, their History page is currently blank.
Well, the quickest explanation is that Othello is a newer version of Reversi. The main differences are: in Reversi the board starts off empty, but Othello starts with that 2x2 diagonal black/white pattern in the middle four squares. Reversi dates back to 1883 (plus or minus a few years, depending on who you ask), created by Lewis Waterman or John W. Mollett (disputed for years), but Othello is credited as being invented by Satoshi Hasegawa in 1971, and that's the patented game we all know today.
Here is the 1889 House of Lords case of Waterman vs Ayres (Ayres was the company selling the game invented by Mr. Mollett), arguing over who really created it and whether the phrase "Reversi" could be trademarked at all. Facts as stated: Lewis Waterman claims to have created the game later known as Reversi is 1883; it was played on a standard 8x8 board with disks that were black on one side and red on the other; the rest of the rules were as we know them today. Waterman spent a great deal of money and effort marketing the game, so he needs to defend his investment. In Nov 1886, Ayres brought out a game called Annex which was essentially the same, and in 1886 he added the phrase "the game of reverses" to his box, which the plantiff says was done to cash in on the popularity of his game.
If that's not enough to sort out, Ayres claims that both games were just cheaper versions of the game called Annexation brought out by Mollett in 1876. Source [4] has a nice clear breakdown with some images of Reversi boards from about the 1920s.
The difference is that this first game was NOT played on an 8x8 standard board but on some kind of cross shaped board. But nowhere online can I find even one image of this original game board! Over at Board and Pieces [2] there are two interesting designs, but the author says, "I have seen the shape of the board for that game in three diagrams people have drawn for their web sites, but I have not been able to locate a more original source for that information."
Supposedly, in an 1880 issue of Queen magazine, Waterman proposed a new
version called Reversi that could be played on a standard chess board,
and claimed to be the inventor.[1,3] But although it's mentioned in a few places, it doesn't sound like any of the folks citing this article ever actually saw it. I even saw it cited once by year alone, where if you had the full article to look at, you should be able to do better than that. I was unable to find scans or copies of any issues from that year.
I have been unable to find any image of the original Annexation game, not a single listing on eBay or any of the regular sites that sell antique board games. And BoardGameGeek annoyingly just lumps it in with Othello, so if you go there looking for an image of this rarity, you are totally swamped by mass-produced modern stuff; the oldest image I see there is this 1930 Jacques set (UK). Of all the editions and translations and knock-offs, the name Turnemova is pretty darn funny. So that was worth a visit, to get THAT phrase stuck in my head until the end of time.
A gorgeous image of an early set is here on GamesBoard.org.uk but it's still a square 8x8 board, so it's not the earliest.
The degree of confusion here is astounding. Over at Quadibloc [5], the author says "Goro Hasegawa invented [his] version of
Reversi shortly after the end of the Second World War; this was before the game of Reversi was brought
to public awareness in Martin Gardner's Mathematical Games column for July, 1961, so it indeed
was an independent invention." Well guess what, it's NOT mentioned in that issue of Scientific American, after I paid $7.99 for an official PDF of the issue hoping to get some insight from a world-class master of gaming and accurate research. But it IS in Gardner's "New Mathematical Diversions, Revised Edition" on page 75, you can preview that on Google, although, comically, whatever colors were in the original, all the pieces print black here. At least [5] puts those two alternate cross-shaped board images into place as 1920s-1940s versions of "Royal Reversi", if any of this can be believed. And how is deciding on a starting position in a game where the first few moves are so redundant any kind of "independent invention"??
Gardner narrows down that issue of Queen magazine to Spring 1888, not 1880 as stated by others. He mentions that he did have a Scientific American article where he shows the shortest possible game of Reversi, but it sure wasn't in the July 1961 issue. It was mentioned in his April 1977 column, where he says his original expose of the rules was in the April 1960 column, but the Scientific American search said it was the May 1960 column. Which says, "Last month we asked if it was possible for a player, in less than 10 moves, to win a game of reversi by eliminating all enemy pieces..." So yeah, April 1960. I should have trusted Mr. Gardner. It's same text as in his book mentioned above -- (face palm) -- but for people who just want to cut and paste references online, the correct citation for where he gave the full rule set for reversi is Mathematical Games by Martin Gardner, Scientific American, April 1960. Page 170.
One more wacky tangent: there are some mentions that Reversi may have come from a much older Chinese game named Fan Mien (E. O. Harbin, "Games of Many Nations", Abingdon Press, 1954). Sure, why not. If nobody can prove any original thought, why not just say it comes from some ancient thing you made up? This tangent is a dead end. If it was ever a popular game, it has not made a dent on the Internet. I see reddit posts of people asking for more info and never getting answers. I see nothing about a game of that name anywhere, no rules, no images.
Surely, the answer is buried in an issue of the Othello Quarterly ... someone in their 25+ years of operations MUST have researched it.
It is just so strange that for a game with millions of players and world tournaments, the basic origin story is such a mess. Surely, someone has one of these very early editions in their game collection?
3. The Book of Games: Strategy, Tactics and History, by Jack Botermans
5. Qudibloc page about Reversi, which is about the same as [2]
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