Othello

I played Oth­el­lo last night with a friend. I’ve nev­er actu­al­ly played the game against anoth­er per­son, usu­al­ly I’ve only played it on the com­put­er [and always got­ten wailed on]. It is much more fun play­ing with an actu­al per­son, espe­cial­ly if a lit­tle wine has greased the old head­gears. So today I will inun­date you with Oth­el­loness.

You might know it as Rever­si. But Mat­tel brought the game to a larg­er mar­ket. Peo­ple fol­low Oth­el­lo like they fol­low chess.

I am pret­ty sure it is relat­ed to the Japan­ese game of Go. Go plays an impor­tant role in Dar­ren Aronof­sky’s π.

I’d like to learn to play Go. It looks like any­one can do so by going here.

Oth­el­lo is def­i­nite­ly a game of sub­tle­ty. You com­pete pure­ly by flank­ing manouev­ers and any direct assault is sure to end in ruin. I thought this morn­ing while in the show­er that it should prob­a­bly be called Shep­herd; you basi­cal­ly try to herd the oth­er per­son where you want them to go. It is great.