Word: othello
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When Japanese Salesman Goro Hasegawa, 44, invented his simple board game in 1971, his father, a Shakespearean scholar, duly noted that the appeal of the game was based on a series of "dramatic reversals." Perhaps, he suggested, it should be called Othello. Today Othello is a national pastime played by some 25 million Japanese-and a full-blown fad replete with towels, tie clasps, and key chains, all emblazoned with the distinctive Othello emblem. Spearheaded by Fumio Fujita, 27, a barber from outside Tokyo and the game's reigning champion, Othello has invaded England...
That fact has already been confirmed at Washington's Woodward & Lothrop department store, where a test lot of 3,000 sets (price: $9 each) quickly sold out, and at Manhattan's F.A.O. Schwarz, where Othello is the No. 1 seller in the game department. Othello fans at 50 colleges are already signing up for the Eastern Regional Othello Tournament scheduled for February, and addicts at Caltech and M.I.T. will face off against each other in a match this week...
...Othello's greatest attractions is that the game is easy to learn. Two players alternate putting reversible plastic disks-white side up for one player, black side up for his opponent-on a board with 64 squares. As the game progresses, each player tries to build up horizontal, vertical or diagonal rows of disks in his designated color-at the same time trying to capture the opponent's rows. A capture is accomplished by outflanking a row, maneuvering to place white disks, for example, at both ends of a row of black disks. When this happens...
Lawyer Weinberg looks on Othello as "a cleansing experience." Says he: "It doesn't wear your mind out as chess does. When I finish a game, I feel very good. I'm refreshed...
...Othello is always going to strangle Desdemona," Kahn says "But sport is unpredictable and real. The pain is real, and the tears are real tears." Kahn, author of the bestselling The Boys of Summer, an affectionate look back to the glory days of the Dodgers in Brooklyn has been writing about sports for 26 years. This week he begins a new feature for TIME. His "Byplay" will appear 20 times a year, offering, in Kahn's words, "a dialogue with our readers on sports...