Reversi - An Animated Guide
 A brief guide to the various named openings, some common traps to set or avoid, some
short wipeouts, a selection of normal & reversed games and an interactive opening trainer.
 
Select an area:
 		Show
moves / scores

Frame rate
 
Openings
Sort Continuations

More information
A brief Strategy Guide covering Reversi & Reversed Reversi
The original Openings Page

Links
 The Othello Guide
 Source of most of the tricks & traps
Sadly this site has vanished for now :(
 Othello Patterns & Tricks
A few more tricks from here
 Othello: A Minute to Learn...
A 169-page PDF book from Brian Rose
set to become the definitive guide.
NOV (Original Dutch)
NOV (English Translation)
 Source of the 9 move wipeouts
FFO (Original French)
FFO (English Translation)
Source of the expanded openings list
WZebra Othello program for Windows
New build released 27/12/2005
Kurnik
Play reversi with others online
More links
More Othello/Reversi links
Reversed Reversi
Reversed Reversi Games
Source of the reversed games

View changelog

(c) Steve MacGuire 2005-6
aka TuringTest2
 
Openings
  
 
 
  
 
  BLACK  
   
     
   
 
2 discs
  
 
4 moves
 		 
     
 
Black to move
  
 






 
 
 
  
 
 
  
   
  WHITE  
   
     
   
 
2 discs
  
 
4 moves
 		 
     
   







 
 
 Orientation
1 2 3 4
Yahoo start
Edit
Save as SGF
 
 
 
 
 
     
 
Select an opening from the list on the left to view it and a brief description or select a different area to explore from the list above. Use the controls at the bottom of the board to flip/rotate the board and control playback. The move list that is presented can also be clicked on to jump to a specific move. The board is interactive and, when playback is paused, you can make your own moves to explore the options. Scores, where given, are generally based on WZebra's larger opening book and a search depth of 20-24 moves.

For a larger list of named openings click here.

 
 
LATEST FEATURES ADDED (latest first)		  
 
  • Fixed Fixing url parameter & board editor bugs
  • Speeded up score retrieval
  • Simplified scoring table - starting to enlarge table to cover bigger opening list.
  • More wipeouts added.
  • Board editor feature now fully implemented complete with move validation
  • The 'Modified' message produced when an item changes can now be clicked to revert.
  • Allow variant sequences to be called up, optionally jumping to a specific move.
  • Reworked scoring & move evaluation code to support future changes.
  • Finally fixed Firefox problems - all features appear to work in both IE & Mozilla/Firefox.
  • Now caters for Yahoo! start position and updates descriptions accordingly.
  • Improved code to convert compass references in descriptions during flip/rotate.
  • More tesuji added from Brian Rose's book.
  • Started a board edit feature which allows user generated examples to be created & fully defined by the generated link.
  • Added new url parameters - can now be used to fully define a game or trick etc.
    e.g http://www.samsoft.org.uk/reversi/?seq=c4e3f4c5d2c3b4d3d6&gn=Wipeout&gc=A very short game!
    describes the classic wipeout. The optional parameters are:-
    seq   the list of moves
    ab   list of initial black discs
    aw   list of initial white discs
    pb   name of black player
    pw   name of white player
    pl   starting player, e.g. O,W,2 for white
    gn   game name
    ev   event
    gc   game comment
    jump   jumps to a particular move
    item   recalls an existing item on the site
    opt   set orientation (1-8)
  • Save item as SGF file readable by WZebra & other Othello/Reversi programs.
  • Simplified generation of the big book page, now #includes extra data into this page.
  • Rearranged the order of pages within the site.
  • Incorporated some additional named openings used by NTest, e.g. Scorpion, Nicolet.
  • Added a section called Happy Start which presents random positions, in random orientations, from a list of pre-scored positions, object to select best move.
  • Now recognises Parallel-Cow & Parallel-Chimney transpositions.
  • Added orientation selector/indicator.
  • Added projected scores for all standard listed openings and intermediate positions.
  • Optionally highlight available moves - now gives book scores for opening positions.
  • Display move counts for each player to indicate relative mobility.
  • Set list event triggers from onClick & onChange - which should work as required - now you can use the cursor keys to display one item after another.
  • Enable a hyperlink to call particular examples - just copy the shortcut "Link to item"
    The link query is case-free & works on partial match & area names e.g. http://samsoft.org.uk/reversi?item=tricks selects the Tricks & Traps area.
  • Moves now in a jump table allowing selection of a particular move in the sequence.
  • Completed descriptions of standard openings with recommended moves & predicted scores - may extend to bigger list over time.
  • Recognises equivalent perpendicular openings with moves 3 & 5 swapped (Tiger).
  • Recognises when an opening has been played and brings up relevant description.
  • Maintains board orientation when following links within opening descriptions.
  
  Is it done yet?

YES... but that hasn't stopped me from tweaking it. Outstanding ideas include:-		  
 
  • Fix scripting error that can occur if mouse wanders over specific links as page loads - one down two to go...
  • Suggestions from ps_blue - Provide a running score in Happy Start, cater for initial non-drawing moves that WZebra scores no worse than -4, e.g. those leading to Comp'Oth, as these are not necessarily bad moves if approached as part of a planned strategy.
  • Calculate accurate endgame scores, e.g. from move 50 onwards.
  • Add puzzle section. Possibly present the existing tesuji in random orientations, ask for best move and provide feedback.
  • More interesting games required! Also short games, puzzles, tricks & traps etc.
    If you know of any more examples please send submissions to:-
    TuringTest2@{remove}samsoft.org.uk
  
  & NO... Since I first started work on these pages I have run across a larger list of named openings at the "Othello University" (560+ as opposed to the 77 used by WZebra) which in turn appears to be derived from a list maintained by The French Othello Federation. With the aid of AltaVista Babel Fish, some detective work (please tell me if you can improve on any of my translations) and some other sources I have combined the various lists to create an alternate version of this page with 630 named openings here. I am currently extending the scoring information and descriptions to cover this larger list but it might take some time.