Hello. This strategy guide is currently under construction. Feel free to send your comments to adsfadsfhs@yahoo.com.
Othello is a game with simple rules while being extremely complicated. "Easy to learn, hard to master" is a common phase people use to refer to Othello. This guide assumes you understand how to play the game of Othello. There are many sites on the Internet where you can learn how to play it if you don't know how to play it.
You can check the reversi links page on this site to check some out.
Maximum Disc Strategy
Since the goal of the game is to have the most discs at the end of the game, many beginners translate this into a strategy called Maximum Disc Strategy. This simply means that they try to make moves that flip the most discs possible. As we will see later, this strategy is not an effective strategy at all.
Stable Discs
Stable discs are discs that will not be flipped, no matter what happens in the game. Therefore, it is generally a good idea to get as many stable discs as possible. Because the four corners of the board can never be flipped, it is generally a good idea to take them. After you have gotten a piece in one of the four corners, you should try to make moves to flip the discs next to the corner or to other stable discs to increase the amount of stable discs you possess. With this in mind, preventing your opponent from getting corners is a good idea. Your opponent can never get a corner unless you have x-squares, squares that are diagonally adjacent to the corners, or c-squares, squares that are vertically or horizontally adjacent to the corners. Therefore it is often a good idea not to have those squares. However, this is only a general rule and you should not follow it blindly.
Mobility
Getting a corner is important, but how do you force your opponent to get x-squares and c-squares? This can be accomplished by reducing your opponent's mobility, the number of moves available. When your opponent runs out of moves, you will have control of the whole game. You can make moves that will make all of your opponent’s moves be moves that will give you access to corners when you have control of the game.
Frontier Discs:
A frontier disc is a disc that is not completely surrounded by other discs. When you make a move, you always flip at least one of your opponent’s frontier discs. It is a good idea to keep the number of your frontier discs down as much as possible, so that your opponent has less possible moves. This is why the Maximum Disc Strategy is such a bad idea.
Edges:
It is common to see that players who play Othello for a while have the habit of taking all the edges. This strategy may seem to work at first sight, since your mobility usually will not go too low. However, there are a lot of drawbacks to this strategy.