Reversi

How to Play Reversi

Reversi (also known as Othello) is a strategy game played on an 8x8 board with two-sided discs -- black on one side, white on the other. The game starts with four discs in the center. On your turn, place a disc so that it traps one or more of the opponent's discs between your new disc and an existing one of yours, in any straight line. All trapped discs are flipped to your color.

If you cannot make a valid move, you pass. The game ends when the board is full or neither player can move. The player with the most discs on the board wins. On PlayVersusAI, you play as black and go first.

Strategy Tips

• Fight for corners -- Corner discs can never be flipped. They anchor your position and control the board.
• Avoid X-squares and C-squares -- The squares diagonally adjacent to corners (X-squares) and directly adjacent (C-squares) can give your opponent the corner. Stay away from them when the corner is empty.
• Keep disc count low early -- Counter-intuitively, having fewer discs in the early game gives you more moves. This is called disc minimization.
• Maximize mobility -- Try to have more legal moves available than your opponent. When they run out of good moves, they're forced into bad ones.
• Think about stable discs -- Discs that can never be flipped (edges, corners, lines connected to corners) are your most valuable assets.