From wgreview@aol.com Mon Sep 23 13:24:02 CDT 1996 Article: 5159 of rec.games.abstract Path: gannett.math.niu.edu!corn.cso.niu.edu!vixen.cso.uiuc.edu!uwm.edu!nntp.primenet.com!enews.sgi.com!news.sgi.com!news.msfc.nasa.gov!newsfeed.internetmci.com!newsxfer2.itd.umich.edu!portc01.blue.aol.com!newstf01.news.aol.com!newsbf02.news.aol.com!not-for-mail From: wgreview@aol.com (Wgreview) Newsgroups: rec.games.abstract Subject: Shortest reversi games Date: 21 Sep 1996 12:07:19 -0400 Organization: America Online, Inc. (1-800-827-6364) Lines: 39 Sender: root@newsbf02.news.aol.com Message-ID: <5213rn$iti@newsbf02.news.aol.com> Reply-To: wgreview@aol.com (Wgreview) NNTP-Posting-Host: newsbf02.mail.aol.com cet1@cus.cam.ac.uk (Chris Thompson) asked : >There has been a thread over in sci.math about the shortest possible >game of Othello [a.k.a. Reversi]..... >Many people seem to half-remember that this is a solved problem >(Martin Gardner's column in Scientific American has been mentioned), >but no-one seems able to provide a precise reference. >Can anyone on rec.games.abstract provide one? Martin Gardner wrote about reversi in his April 1960 "Mathematical Games" column, later collected in _Martin_Gardner's_ New_Mathematical_Diversions_from_Scientific_American_ (Simon and Schuster 1966, probably easier to find than the magazine). Two readers sent in first-player wipeout wins of 11-0. One of these (converted to standard notation) is : 1 d5 2 e5 3 d4 4 e4 5 f4 6 e3 7 f2 8 c4 9 b4 10 c5 11 d6 This is not a legal Othello[TM] game, as it starts with a different opening position legal in reversi. David Haigh reported in a letter to the editor of Othello Quarterly (OQ 3:3, Winter 1981/1982, p.28) that there were only four such 11-0 wins (7 d2 can be played, and/or moves 8/9 can be swapped with 10/11). Haigh also programmed a computer to look for the shortest possible games starting with the Othello opening position (equivalent to 1 d5 2 e5 3 e4 4 d4). He found 57 different games ending in 13-0 wipeouts for Black (confirming earlier work by a Japanese player, Manabu Maruo, who also found 89 games ending in 14-0 wipeouts for White.) The most interesting of these is : 5 e6 6 f4 7 e3 8 f6 9 g5 10 d6 11 e7 12 f5 13 c5 Maruo found a similar game winning 14-0 for White : 5 d3 6 c5 7 e6 8 d2 9 c4 10 f5 11 c6 12 b5 13 d6 14 d7 Michael Keller, World Game Review, 1747 Little Creek Drive, Baltimore, MD 21207-5230, From breadbox@muppetlabs.com Mon Sep 23 13:24:08 CDT 1996 Article: 5188 of rec.games.abstract Path: gannett.math.niu.edu!fnnews.fnal.gov!uwm.edu!lll-winken.llnl.gov!enews.sgi.com!news.sgi.com!news.msfc.nasa.gov!newsfeed.internetmci.com!wisdom.connectsoft.net!muppetlabs.com!breadbox From: breadbox@muppetlabs.com (Brian Raiter) Newsgroups: rec.games.abstract Subject: Re: Shortest Othello game Date: 22 Sep 1996 12:26:17 GMT Organization: Muppetlabs, Inc. Lines: 31 Message-ID: <523b99$ti6@wisdom.connectsoft.net> References: <51uiaj$gpu@lyra.csx.cam.ac.uk> NNTP-Posting-Host: eidolon.connectsoft.com Keywords: othello reversi Chris Thompson : > There has been a thread over in sci.math about the shortest possible > game of Othello [a.k.a. Reversi], either on the 8x8 board or on an > infinite one, although the answer is probably the same. Many people > seem to half-remember that this is a solved problem (Martin > Gardner's column in Scientific American has been mentioned), but > no-one seems able to provide a precise reference. Comin' right up. The reference is New Mathematical Diversions, in Chapter 6 ("Board Games"). Gardner talks there about Reversi only (since Othello had yet to be "discovered" by Gabriel at that time). In the original game of Reversi, it is legal to start out the game either with the two pieces side-by-side or in a diagonal. Under such rules Martin Gardner gives two games with six moves that end in a "fool's mate," but both start with the position not allowed by Othello rules. (One solution: 28, 29; 36, 37; 38, 45; 54, 35; 34, 27; 20. The numbers are the squares that the player moves to when the board is numbered left-to-right, bottom-to-top from 1 to 64.) Luckily for us, this book has recently been reprinted with an new, updated postscript. In the new text discussing chapter 6 Gardner describes the arrival of Othello and its popularity, and then at the end states: "If the Othello opening is used, there are 57 ways the first player can win on his seventh move. These were discovered in 1975 by Manubu Maruo, and confirmed by computer." Unfortunately Gardner does not list any of the solutions. b From Bruno.TurquetDeLaBoisserie@pop.wanadoo.fr Sun Oct 13 14:03:41 CDT 1996 Article: 5678 of rec.games.abstract Path: gannett.math.niu.edu!fnnews.fnal.gov!uwm.edu!math.ohio-state.edu!jussieu.fr!rain.fr!wanadoo.fr!usenet From: Bruno Turquet de la Boisserie Newsgroups: rec.games.abstract Subject: Re: Othello shortest game Date: 13 Oct 1996 08:36:28 GMT Organization: France Telecom Interactive Lines: 50 Message-ID: <53q9mc$18g@cyan.wanadoo.fr> NNTP-Posting-Host: yellow-rou-219.wanadoo.fr Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: Mozilla 1.12FT[fr] (Windows; I; 16bit) Status: R Hello, >> There has been a thread over in sci.math about the shortest possible >> game of Othello [a.k.a. Reversi], either on the 8x8 board or on an >> infinite one, although the answer is probably the same. Many people >> seem to half-remember that this is a solved problem (Martin >> Gardner's column in Scientific American has been mentioned), but >> no-one seems able to provide a precise reference. >The reference is New Mathematical Diversions, in Chapter 6 ("Board >Games"). Gardner talks there about Reversi only (since Othello had yet >to be "discovered" by Gabriel at that time). In the original game of >Reversi, it is legal to start out the game either with the two pieces >side-by-side or in a diagonal. Under such rules Martin Gardner gives >two games with six moves that end in a "fool's mate," but both start >with the position not allowed by Othello rules. (One solution: 28, 29; >36, 37; 38, 45; 54, 35; 34, 27; 20. The numbers are the squares that >the player moves to when the board is numbered left-to-right, >bottom-to-top from 1 to 64.) >Luckily for us, this book has recently been reprinted with an new, >updated postscript. In the new text discussing chapter 6 Gardner >describes the arrival of Othello and its popularity, and then at the >end states: "If the Othello opening is used, there are 57 ways the >first player can win on his seventh move. These were discovered in >1975 by Manubu Maruo, and confirmed by computer." Unfortunately >Gardner does not list any of the solutions. To my knowledge (according to the British Othello Federation Newsletter), there are 57 ways to end an Othello game at move 9 (not 7). Here is one of them, with a rather pleasant symmetry (international othello notation) : -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- 03 -- -- -- -- -- -- WW BB 02 -- -- -- -- 09 BB WW 08 05 -- -- -- -- 06 01 04 -- -- -- -- -- -- 07 -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- Additional references are available in other Othello magazines such as "Othello Quarterly" (United States Othello Association, 920 Northgate Ave., Waynesboro, VA 22980 USA) Bruno de la Boisserie former French Othello Federation Secretary