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Hiroshi Inoue was the first world champion of Othello winning the inaugural WOC in 1977 in Tokyo and he also won a second world title at the 3rd WOC in Rome in 1979. 

Inoue was an experienced Go player who discovered Othello shortly after it was first marketed in Japan in 1973. His first tournament was the 2nd All-Japan championship in April 1974. In 1976 he reached the semi-finals of the men's division (which would become the "open division" two years later) of the 4th All-Japan Championship, losing to the eventual winner Fumio Fujita. The following year in 1977, Hiroshi Inoue won his first All-Japan Championship title,  defeating Masahiro Kobayashi in the one game final.

In June 1980, Hiroshi Inoue was invited to play at a "Man-Machine" Othello tournament at the Northwestern University in Evanston, USA. Hiroshi Inoue, the reigning world champion, and Jonathan Cerf who was the US champion (and became world champion a few months later) were the only human players invited to to the tournament, the rest of the field was made up of some of the strongest Othello computer programs of that era. Inoue won the tournament but lost one game against David Levy's program "The Moor".

Inoue is the author of a 240 page Othello strategy book "Discovery of Reversal - Othello's Formula and Winning Strategy" published in 1977 (only available in Japanese).

World Othello Champion 1977, Tokyo, Japan World Othello Champion 1979, Rome, Italy All-Japan Championship 1977, 1979 Northwestern Man-Machine Othello Tournament 1980, Evanston, USA