Chapter 4: Intro to Openings

The following is an adaptation of the book 'Othello: A minute to learn a life time to master' by Brian Rose. Which can be found in the 'Resources' section. Some positions and explanations may differ slightly from the original source due to impossible or unidentifiable positions used, however we tried to remain consistent to the source as much as possible. Many thanks to Brian for allowing us to develop this material. 

This chapter provides a brief introduction to the wonderful world of openings. I want to draw a clear distinction between the opening phase of the game, which is what I will discuss in this chapter, and book openings, i.e., moves that are prepared and memorized before the game begins (see chapter 11).

There is really no standard definition of where the opening ends and the midgame begins. Often it is defined as the first 10, 15, or at most 20 moves of the game. However, I prefer to think of the opening as being over as soon as any of the edge squares are taken. The introduction of strong computer programs in the 1990’s has had a dramatic effect on opening theory. For experts, looking to grab an advantage wherever they can, this has usually meant devoting a greater percentage of their practice time to researching and memorizing book openings. There have even been cases of people playing the entire game using memorized moves! However, for novices, all of this opening theory leads to the opposite conclusion, suggesting that they should spend little or no time memorizing.

It turns out that, contrary to the beliefs of 20 or 30 years ago, there are many different ways to play the opening, all of which lead to reasonably balanced positions. Even a lot of the moves which look terrible turn out to give only a slight advantage to the opponent, certainly not enough to worry about in a game between novices. For novice players, I feel that there is little to be gained by memorizing openings. It would be far more useful, and presumably a lot more enjoyable, to spend time playing games instead.

One other result from computer analysis is worth mentioning here. At the time of this writing, it appears that a perfectly played game of Othello would end in a draw. Thus, you need not worry too much about which color you play in any particular game; neither side starts with an advantage. I would recommend that you play roughly half of your games with each color. Having a “favorite” color that you insist on playing all the time is a bad habit to get into. Let us begin our discussion of openings from the first move of the game.

Black has four options to choose from, but from a theoretical point of view they are all the same, because the board is symmetric. From a practical point of view, however, it does make some difference where you play. Most experts always play the first move in the same place, and I would recommend that you do this as well, because positions that you have seen before are easier to recognize that way. Personally, I have always played move one at f5, and most of the diagrams in this book reflect this.

At move two, White has three choices, which are named perpendicular, diagonal, and parallel, reflecting the direction flipped relative to move one. These are pictured in Diagrams 4-1, 4-2, and 4-3 respectively. While both the perpendicular and diagonal are commonly seen in expert play, the parallel is considered to be inferior. The only time I can remember using the parallel was in a game played against Jonathan Cerf, the 1980 World Champion, with black and white cupcakes instead of regular pieces! I got into so much trouble that in desperation, I started to eat the pieces! While it certainly would not hurt to practice playing the parallel, in games where you really want to win, the perpendicular or diagonal would be a better choice.