Trade secrets

I can't believe that I'm taking Saturday's othello tournament seriously enough that I'm a) preparing strategies for it, and b) reluctant to write about these strategies in my blog because I know that some or all of my opponents are going to be reading it. But it's a constant source of annoyance to me when certain players insist on playing the comp'oth opening against me, because I have some kind of irrational hatred of it and never play well when someone does that to me. So I've been working on it lately in an attempt to fix up this achilles heel of mine. 'Fix up' is the wrong phrase there. Shield it? Buy a proper armoured boot for it? Refrain from going into battle in such a way that my heel can be attacked? That can't be too hard to do, surely? Achilles must have been pretty useless.

Anyway, I was saying. So having done some proper opening analysis and learned the best way to deal with any eventuality if my opponent plays comp'oth, I thought it would be fun to blog about it (it was either that or talk about memory training again, because I haven't done anything else today). But if I do that, everyone eagerly reading this blog will analyse my analysis and find a way to beat me! So I'm not going to. Although I've already rather spoiled the surprise, haven't I? But this way, nobody knows whether I'm genuinely an expert on comp'oth now, or just saying so in a sort of cunning bluff to persuade them to play a different opening that I like better. Hopefully, now all my opponents on Saturday will be so confused that they won't play any moves at all, and I'll win on time!