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The World's Most Hated Book

© Copyright 2001, Jim Loy

What is the most hated book in the world? Rushdie's Satanic Verses comes to mind. Anything by the Marquis de Sade, or other famous pornography, might qualify. Some people hate Darwin's Origin of Species. Religious people might hate the teachings of other religions. I was surprised to find that How To Win at Othello, by Goro Hasegawa is universally condemned and even hated by the people who play Othello. Othello (trademark of Gabriel Industries in the USA) is a board game with simple rules. It was invented by Mr. Hasegawa in 1971, by simplifying the already simple game of Reversi. The game became very popular in Japan and later throughout the world. See Yahoo - Board Games page. Both Othello and Reversi are very interesting and fun.

Mr. Hasegawa's book looks nice, and it helped to popularize Othello and some of the terminology. I wondered just how bad this vilified book is. Here are some of the flaws that I found:

• Every example game (including those by World Champs) is filled with mistakes (both major and minor), most of which are not mentioned.
• A couple of moves which the book says are mistakes were actually good moves.
• A few bad moves are even called strong or ingenious.
• The book emphasizes some simplistic "winning" principles which are not considered sound (nowadays).
• The book does not mention many well-known sound principles (apparently not well-known at the time).
• The chapter on how to keep score is botched miserably.
• The book (first edition) is poorly bound. Every page has come out of my copy, which continually sheds bits of hardened glue.

The endgame in Othello can be solved exactly with a computer. That was probably true in 1974 (when the Japanese version of the book was copyrighted) as well. I can show that these moves are good or bad. Mr. Hasegawa could have, too. There are errors right at the ends of some games (last two or three moves) which could have been calculated by hand. The book was very very sloppily done. And I suppose many beginning players were miseducated by this book. These miseducated players are probably the most vocal in condemning this book.

Addendum:

A much much better book is Othello: Brief and Basic by Ted Landau, and published by the United States Othello Association , P. O. Box 342, Falls Church, VA 22046. An excellent magazine in the USA is the newsletter of the U. S. Othello Association, Othello Quarterly. Also see Bluez Othello Links.

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