It's taken a little longer than anticipated to get the details firmed up due to the planning cycle being interrupted by pandemic res
trictions but earlier today the World Othello Federation (WOF) announced that the World Othello Championships (WOC) will be held this year in FRANCE at the PARIS CONVENTION CENTER on the 28TH-30TH OCTOBER
This is super exciting, COVID meant the WOC was cancelled in 2020 and 2021, so we're well over due some elite play to scrutinise. The cancellation of the last two years is made all the more bitter, firstly as the Othello community was proud to be holding one of the longest streaks of an annual amateur board game World Championship.
Othello pips the World Amateur Go Championships by two years, the WOC starting in 1977.
Backgammon has a professional tournament
that got a head start on us, starting its streak in 1971.
Chess and Draughts don't come close to Othello. Chess gets a bit confusing to work out what counts but, Go and Draughts had tournaments last year and given their popularity we'd expect them to remain one ahead for the foreseeable future.
Others include Shogi, this has a tournament which started its streak in 1951 and Go has the Meijin which started in 1962, both were remarkably able to continue through 2020 and 2021 but these are professional tournaments also.
If you have any other examples of long running board game championships then we'd be interested to know.
Secondly, the WOF had got really good in recent years at providing coverage of the WOC, offering live broadcasted games and commentary by top rated players. We'll be keen to see if any of the learnings of previous years have been forgotten or if the last two years out have allowed the WOF to innovate further.
You can find out more and keep up to date with the latest info here and we'll be back with our guide closer to the time including confirmation of the British team. Which as you know by now we'll be determining next month.
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