h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Othello is Japanese, Reversi is British. In Revesi the board starts off empty and the first four moves fill the center squares, giving two possible starting set ups,

ox&xx
ox<spaceoo

and

xo
ox

The first one being the prefered method. In fact some clubs used to give out official warnings and then ban people for using the latter. Also in Othello players share a 64 piece pool, where as in Reversi each p;layer is limited to their own 32 pieces.

Knowing both Chess and Reversi/Othello well, I want to remark here that if the players of the latter spent as much time on their game as the players of the former then the endgame would effectively begin right after the opening with the middle game squeezed out. Here is a variant of the game that would cure this problem: First of all, you might as well start with the Reversi empty board; Second, allow either flipping or simply placing a contiguous disk for four moves after the first four normal moves (where the center is filled). Just for starters, this yields thirteen essentially different five-disc positions where in Othello there is only one and in Reversi there are three. Knowing what I know about how much goes into the opening study of chess and the middle-game theorizing for refuting Othello openings that are bad, I believe opening theory would be about as deep as it is now for this variant if it were a professional option.