Play Reversi Online for Free

Every mode here is free and opens straight from this page: no account, no download, no install. Pick a difficulty and start a game against the computer, or pass one device back and forth for local two-player. Sign in only if you want a rating that follows you between sessions.

The board works on desktop, tablet and phone, and can be installed from your browser as an app if you want it available offline.

Challenge players worldwide through ranked matchmaking. Every result adjusts your Elo rating, so the system keeps pairing you with opponents at roughly your own strength instead of throwing you at beginners or masters at random.

Ranks run from Bronze to Grandmaster. Casual matches stay unrated, for when you would rather warm up, practise a new opening, or play without the ladder watching.

Reversi is played on an 8×8 board with two-coloured discs. Black moves first. A move is legal only when it traps at least one line of your opponent's discs between the disc you place and another of your own — every disc in that line flips to your colour. If you have no legal move you pass, and the game ends when neither player can move. Whoever owns more discs wins.

That is the entire ruleset, and it takes about a minute to learn. What makes the game deep is that flipping the most discs early is usually a mistake: it hands your opponent more squares to play on. Our step-by-step guide walks through setup, legal moves, passing and scoring with worked examples.

To almost everyone playing today they are the same game. Reversi is the 19th-century original, where players brought their own discs and the opening four squares could be filled freely. Othello is the 1970s standardisation that fixed the starting position, gave each player 32 discs, and became the competitive tournament ruleset.

This site uses the standard Othello position and rules, so anything you learn here transfers directly to club and tournament play — and to any app sold under either name.

Set up any position on the interactive solver and it evaluates every legal move, ranks them, and shows which one the engine prefers. It is the quickest way to understand why a move you liked was actually losing.

After a game you can replay it move by move to find the exact point where the position turned. Most improvement in Reversi comes from spotting the one quiet move that gave away a corner, not from memorising lines.

The Reversi Academy covers the whole game: an opening explorer with named openings such as the Tiger, Cow and Snake; positional strategy on corners, edges, X-squares and mobility; endgame technique including parity and counting; and a glossary of the terms you will meet in analysis.

Every guide is written to be read alongside the board, with positions you can step through rather than static diagrams.