⚫⚪ How to play Reversi / Othello (rules and strategy)
By Miguel Arechaga
Reversi, also known as Othello, comes down to one sentence: "a minute to learn, a lifetime to master." Its rules are extremely simple, but the strategy is deep and often counterintuitive. Here are the keys.
What is Reversi?
It's played on an 8x8 board with pieces of two colors. You place a piece so that it traps your opponent's pieces in a line between your new piece and another one of yours: all the trapped pieces switch to your color. At the end, whoever has more pieces wins. In our version you play black against the computer.
How to play
- Place a piece so that you enclose your opponent's pieces in a line (in any direction) between your new piece and another one of yours.
- The enclosed pieces get flipped and become yours. Light dots mark the valid moves.
- If you have no valid move, your turn is passed automatically.
- The game ends when neither player can move: whoever has more pieces wins.
Strategy: less is more early on
The beginner's mistake is trying to flip the maximum number of pieces every turn. In reality, having lots of pieces mid-game is bad: they're pieces your opponent can flip right back. Good players aim for the opposite, having few, well-placed pieces, and limiting their opponent's options.
The key spots on the board are the corners: once you place a piece in a corner, it can never be flipped, and it acts as an anchor to secure entire rows. That's why you should never give your opponent the square next to a corner, since you'd be handing them the corner itself.
Quick tips
- Prioritize corners and stable edges over flipping lots of pieces.
- Avoid the squares next to corners: they usually hand the corner to your opponent.
- Think about mobility: it's good to leave your opponent with no useful moves.
Reversi rewards long-term vision. Once you internalize the value of the corners, you'll start winning games that looked lost.
Play online with 2 players
You can play Reversi (Othello) against another person in several ways: press "🌐 Online" and create a room to share a 4-letter code with whoever you want to challenge, use "🔍 Find opponent" to have the system instantly match you with another available player, or add a friend by their username from the 👥 Friends panel (while signed in) and press "Challenge" next to their name to invite them directly to a match.
🏆 Wins ranking
All your online Reversi (Othello) matches are recorded on your account: every win (and every loss) adds to your history. Go to Ranking, the 🎮 2 Players tab, choose "Reversi (Othello)" from the dropdown, and check your position against other players, synced across all your devices. For your result to count you need a free account on MundoSudoku (just a username and password, no email required): you can play without one, but without signing in your score isn't saved to the ranking.
