Japan :120 New Opening

[zip_882000]

every one enjoy it

http://www5f.biglobe.ne.jp/~nats/jyouseki_itiran.htm

[hello3407]

All in Japanese. Don't know Japanese. Though you know what is going on but you don't know the term for it.

[zip_882000]

haha then gp and study japanese hehe

[richestsabahan]

Not like European or American who name their opening using Surname, the Japanese name their opening using name of animals like, cat, snake, tiger, bull etc.

[hello3407]

You went to find the opening names, last time jo did but not successful.

[xmav000]

if you are interested about opening names, i have some links for you:

http://www.othello-club.de.vu/openings1.html for an applet showing about 535 openings that were named by the french players. list was translated by ben seeley, me and some parts with help of some others

http://www.othello-club.de.vu/openings2.html for an applet showing arround 70 openings collected by Robert Gatliff. he just collected the names that were frequently used and are now well known by most non-french europeans and americans.

mr. masamichi wakamatsu who named most of the japanese openings visited me in germany. we had a fun day talking about a lot of openings. i posted a result of it at
http://www.reversi.se/forum/about173.html
(read the last (my) post on this thread)

the translation of the french list is still not done. there are still errors in it. we hope that many of these names will be known one day, but maybe this wont happen.

ciao
xmav000

[richestsabahan]

To read those Japanese Opening in Chinese, use the following translation website which help, http://www.excite.co.jp/world/chinese/web/

Click the Japanese to Chinese Button

To read it in English, use the following translation website which help, http://www.excite.co.jp/world/english/web/

Click the Japanese to English Button

[xmav000]

if you are interested about opening names, i have some links for you:

http://www.othello-club.de.vu/openings1.html for an applet showing about 535 openings that were named by the french players. list was translated by ben seeley, me and some parts with help of some others

http://www.othello-club.de.vu/openings2.html for an applet showing arround 70 openings collected by Robert Gatliff. he just collected the names that were frequently used and are now well known by most non-french europeans and americans.

mr. masamichi wakamatsu who named most of the japanese openings visited me in germany. we had a fun day talking about a lot of openings. i posted a result of it at
http://www.reversi.se/forum/about173.html
(read the last (my) post on this thread)

the translation of the french list is still not done. there are still errors in it. we hope that many of these names will be known one day, but maybe this wont happen.

ciao
xmav000

[zip_882000]

wow tat a good wed site u should let us know early ma hehe

[xmav000]

you never asked and you obviously havent checked out many other federation's homepages.

[hello3407]

Maybe things should not be taken for granted. I have seen a few federations' websites and there are much to be learnt.

zip, I will appreciate that you speak proper english in the forum, there are other people from overseas that may not understand your slang, use the dictionary if needed.

[zip_882000]

hmhmhmhm ok no next time !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[richestsabahan]

He is forgiven.

[richestsabahan]

Dear Friends,

I think it is easier for us to read Matthias Berg posting if it is posted here.

Yours in Othello,

Edmund Liow

***************************************************************

Matthias Berg Posting:

hi,
today mr. masamichi wakamatsu visited me in potsdam. he is kind of a
godfather of othello openings.
here i want to give you some of my notes i made during our conversation.
[...]

first of all, many of you probably do not know whom i'm talking about
(at least i did not, untill a month ago).
mr. wakamatsu is a 65 year old japanese who has played othello for
almost 29 years. he lives on hokkaido island.

on yahoo.jp he plays as justice_author

in the early years othello discs were red & white.
othello was "Genji" (white flag) vs. "Heike" (red flag) = war
gen-pei-go = othello (old style, 1972/73)

in 1976 started to give names to othello openings. the first 12 names
were animal names according to the moon calendar. in 1976 he gave the
first 6 names. 2-3 years later the others.

masamichi wakamatsu names always the 5th move. his goal is to give every
possible 5th moves a name. he started to write down every posible
position last year (if i remember correctly) and hopes to finish soon.
when he will have finished he will send me the list and hopefully i can
publish it somehow.

the use of this work is questionable. for conversations between othello
players openings that end at 5th moves are not very useful or at least
not sufficient. e.g. if i tell someone "I played tiger opening against
foobar", it won't be very much informative since every 3rd game is a
tiger variation.
on the other hand grouping other openings into a class of 5th-move-names
might be useful. maybe another usecase would be a public effect if you
can say "every possible opening up to 5 moves is already been named"
(you didnt tell that hardly anyone knows all the names).
some people might like to use the 5th move as a starting position. if
the players dont want to play known openings all the time they could
decide to start after the 5th move and if they know the names they could
decide named positions.
there probably are some unknown positions at 5th move that are about
even or at least playable (e.g. i just looked up in wzebra quickly what
might be a good example and found: C4e3F2b4F5)

to find the 12 animals (incl. dragon) of the moon calendar i looked up a
few websites and i got a few different translations.
rat,
ox,
tiger,
rabbit / hare,
dragon,
snake,
horse,
sheep / goat / ram,
monkey,
rooster / cock / chicken,
dog,
pig.

btw., this year is the year of monkey (new year starts between mid of
january and mid of february).

mr. wakamatsu showed me the following 12 openings he named in the 1970's.
mouse, cow, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, sheep, monkey, swallow,
dog and wild pig

i do not know why mouse is not rat (like in the moon calendar). it might
be on purpose or a mistranslation.
same for cow / ox. anyway cow is very famous now

swallow is used instead of rooster/chicken. the opening shows two wings
and its more like a flying bird than a chicken

the last one is a wild pig (with tusks).

the following opening lines are starting with c4. for him it was f6 and
the pictures might make a little more sence from his point of view.
to "see" the animal you need to see only the black discs. ignore the
white ones.

a theory of mine for this: black is very often the foreground color
while white is the background color. and maybe with red instead of black
(as i said, in early years the discs were red & white), red kinda forces
itself to be forground (with white as back ground).
anyway, for me it's reasonable to name the black discs only

#1 mouse
c4-c5-d6-e3 (or c3)-c6(or e6)
ears (c6,d6), body (c5,d5), tail (c4)
at the time the position was named, it wasnt considered as bad as today.

#2 cow
c4-c3-d3-e3-f4
head (d5), front legs (c4), body (d4,e4), tail (f4)

#3 tiger
c4-e3-f6-e6-f5
thead (f6), front legs (f5), body (e5, d5), back legs (d4), tail (c4)

#4 rabbit
c4-e3-f4-c5-d6
ears (d6,e5), nose (f4), face (e4), tail (c4)

#5 dragon
c4-e3-f6-c5-c3
head (f6), body (e5,d5,d4,c4), tail (c3)

#6
snake
c4-c3-d3-e3-c2 (or: symmetric snake f5 instead of c2)
f5 was called snake by masamichi wakamatsu.
but because many players prefered c2 they called it snake and now f5 is
symmetric snake.
head / tounge (d5), body (d4,c4,c3), tail (c2)

#7
horse
c4-e3-f4-c5-e6
head (e6), body (e5,d5), front legs (f4, e4), tail (c4)

#8
sheep (known in europe/america as italian)
c4-e3-f5-e6-d3
head (f5), body (e4,d4,d5), legs (d3), tail (c4)

#9
monkey
c4-e3-f6-c5-d3
hands (f6,c4), head (d5), shoulder (e5), body (d4), legs (d3)

#10
swallow
c4-e3-f5-b4-f3
head (d5), wings ((f5,e5)(f3,e4))

#11
dog
c4-e3-f6-c6-e6
head (f6), body (e6,e5,d5,d4), tail (c4)

#12
wild pig
c4-e3-f2-c3-f5
tusks (f2), head (f5,e5), face (e3), back (d5), tail (c4)

----------------------------------------------------------

mr. wakamatsu tried to remember who introduced the name "bat". he thinks
it was tanida or his friend (and maybe in 1982).

goro hasegawa called a 5-disc-edge a "wing" and a 6-disc-edge a
"mountain" (while a "perfect edge" would be a pure mountain).

raccoon dog was named japanese "tanuki" which is a very famous animal in
japan. and the right translation is badger.
so raccoon dog is a wrong translation (unless its very similar to
badger...since neither of us is english native speaker, we dont know).
if i understood my dictionary correct, there is no animal "raccoon dog"
but it would be called "raccoon" (without dog).
i showed mr. wakamatsu pictures of raccoon and of badger and he said it
he meant badger.

some more openings:

buffalo
C4c3D3c5F6
front legs (d3), head (d4), shoulder (e4), body (e5) back legs (f6)

5th move of lollipop (lollipop is 6.e3):
C4c3D3c5B6
wild goose (that was wakamatsu's first name for this, but noone uses
that name).

lollipop is called "hirame" which is sole fish (or flat fish?). not
named by mr. wakamatsu.

sailboat is known in europe as well, but highspeed ship (boat?) was new
to me.
sailboat:
C4c3D3e3F4d6E6b4D7g4
highspeed ship is only different in move 9.C6 instead of 9.D7
C4c3D3e3F4d6E6b4C6g4
sinking ship was named by ibata kensuke but its not used much i think.
C4c3D3e3F4d6E6b5C6g4

C4e3F5g6F4 is hat
C4e3F5g6F3 is cap
C4e3F5g6G5 is big snake (actually its a name of a big snake. i think
its maybe python, but we couldnt find the name in the dictionary.)

----------------------------------------------------------

mr. ibata has his own list of opening names. i do not think his names
are popular in japan. but i think it probably is interesting to read a
translation of that list (if it ever gets translated)

[...]

it was a very nice day. looking forward to meet mr. masamichi wakamutsu
again (maybe woc 2006 in japan?).

ciao
matthias berg

**************************************************************

Posting collected from, http://www.reversi.se/forum/about173.html
He sent this posting to several mailing list in April, 2004.