Strategy knowledge and strategy change in skilled performance: a study of the game Othello

Skill and skill development in playing the game Othello were investigated. In particular, we studied the role of strategies and strategy change, rather than focusing on knowledge of particular board patterns. The history of the development of the game suggests a shift from positional to mobility strategies, a change which also is reproduced in the development of individual players. The first two studies used historical analysis of tournament transcripts to study strategy change. The third study investigated one possible basis for the greater accessibility or ease of positional versus mobility strategy, namely differential encoding and memorability of typical board patterns. Study 3 demonstrated that completely naive as well as positional players remember positional games and moves more easily than mobility games and moves. The easier mastery of positional strategy may be caused in part by the greater ease of encoding typical positional patterns. We suggest that strategic change and conceptual reorganization may be particularly important for domains where the naive encoding of events is not the most apt. We also suggest that similarities exist between strategy change in Othello and other domains.