David's Othello Page

My first year in graduate school, I got interested in the game Othello during a class project with Sean McCulloch and David Engler. We built Jothello, a Java-based server combined with a serial/parallel computer player. The parallel version of the computer ran over 30 machines using the Legion system, and we showed that it achieved an exponential speedup by being able to look one move further on average. Unfortunately, our server got one-upped by Microsoft and Yahoo. We couldn't compete, and ended up shutting it down.

Since then, I've been to several tournaments in the Washington DC area, and have begun to play more on the internet. I encourage people to play the game, since it's easy to learn and full of strategy. Also, it's really easy to become good at the game. (I was invited to a tournament whose winner would go to the World Championships, after less than a year of experience. Of course, I lost every game. <grin>)

Here are a few links I use:

Microsoft's Internet Gaming Zone
VOG Othello

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