"A minute to learn, a lifetime to master" is the famous tagline, and Othello (also known as Reversi) earns it — a game where a single move in the closing seconds can flip the entire board.
How to Play Othello
Othello is played on an 8x8 board with discs that are dark on one side and light on the other. The game starts with four discs placed in the center of the board in a diagonal pattern — two of each color. Players alternate turns, each placing one disc of their color on the board.
A move is only legal if it "flanks" one or more of the opponent's discs — meaning it traps a straight line (horizontal, vertical, or diagonal) of the opponent's discs between the newly placed disc and another disc of the player's own color already on the board. Every trapped disc in that line is flipped to the player's color. If a player has no legal flanking move available, their turn is skipped. The game ends when the board is full or neither player has a legal move; whoever has more discs of their color on the board wins.
The History of Othello
The game's earlier identity, Reversi, appeared in London in 1883. Two Englishmen, Lewis Waterman and John W. Mollett, both claimed credit for inventing it, and the dispute was never resolved. Reversi became a modest fad among the Victorian English upper classes before interest faded.
Reversi resurfaced nearly a century later on the other side of the world. In 1971, Goro Hasegawa, a salesman in Japan, patented a standardized version of the game with a fixed diagonal starting position and consistent rules, initially describing it as a refinement of Reversi (he later gave more independent-invention accounts of its origin, which added some ambiguity to the historical record). Hasegawa named his version Othello, a reference to Shakespeare's play about the Moor of Venice, tying the name to the game's dramatic reversals between black and white. His rules caught on quickly: the Japan Othello Association formed in 1973, and the first World Othello Championship was held in Tokyo in 1977. Those standardized rules are what nearly everyone plays today, whether they call it Othello or Reversi, and the game has spread from that Japanese revival to become a fixture of board game collections worldwide. It sits in our classic board game lineup alongside other quick-to-learn abstract strategy games that reward pure calculation over luck.
Why Play Othello on RivalPit
- Free and no download. Othello runs instantly in your browser.
- Real-time multiplayer. Challenge a friend with a link, or play a solid CPU opponent.
- Live chat and points. Talk trash mid-match, earn points by playing (never purchased).
- One of 100+ free games on RivalPit, with new games added every week.