You put down your black disk, enclosing your opponent's white disk between another black disk already on the board. You then flip the opponent's disk from white to black. You and your opponent take turns until there are no more available moves and the player whose color dominates the board is the winner.
There. That's all there is to Othello. And a little dust was all there was to Vesuvius.
Beneath its innocent appearance and simple game play, Othello conceals one of the most challenging and enduring strategy games known to humanity. Believed to be older than chess and checkers (going back to when it was called Reversi), Othello is a game of unexpected twists and turns, mind-bending strategy and constant challenge. It's one of a handful of strategy games where the outcome isn't decided in the first few moves. If you're playing black, there might be 2 or 3 white disks on the board as the game nears the end. Then, in a few moves you never anticipated, your opponent is suddenly flipping disk after disk to the opposite color. And all you can do is sit there and watch it happen.
Because of its non-linguistic, purely symbolic game play, it's a game many parents teach to their children and soon, find themselves getting whomped over and over again. A child's ability to think abstractly and look ahead hasn't yet been hindered by the adult obsession with language and the written and spoken word. Like learning to draw, becoming skilled at Othello is a function of the "right" brain: thinking without words, seeing everything, pondering every possibility. It's possible to sit in the middle of a busy airport playing Othello and, over time, becoming completely oblivious to everything else going on around you. Othello can easily be played by opponents who don't speak the same language, which is one of the reasons Othello tournaments attract participants from all over the world.
The product's well-known tagline of "A minute to learn, a lifetime to master" might sound like advertising hype but it's true. Computers have been programmed to play checkers and chess nearly flawlessly, but the same still can't be said of Othello.