Full guide: starting position on the 8×8 board, bracketing a line, flipping discs, the mandatory move and counting the majority on muta.pro.
Reversi is a strategic duel on an 8×8 board with two-sided discs. The goal is to have more of your own discs on the board by the end of the game than the opponent. The peculiarity of the game is that any disc can change color in a single move, so the advantage is fickle: what matters is not momentary gain but control of key squares — above all the corners.
In the center of the 8×8 board are placed four starting discs crosswise: two black and two white along the diagonals. Black moves first. On muta.pro you play Black against a bot that moves with White, or against a live opponent via a room code. Each move has its own numbering, and the disc count by color is visible at all times.
Place a disc so that between it and one of your own discs along a straight line (horizontal, vertical or diagonal) there is an unbroken row of the opponent's discs.
All discs bracketed between two of yours are flipped and become your color. The flipping happens at once in every direction where there is a bracket.
You may place a disc only where it flips at least something. Squares without a bracket are not available.
If you have at least one legal move, you cannot pass — you must move.
When there are no legal moves, the turn is automatically passed and goes to the opponent.
The game ends when the board is full or neither player can move. Then the discs are counted.
Fragments of the board. You play Black, the bot plays White. The gold frame marks the square of your move, and flipped discs get a gold outline.
When the game is over, the discs of each color are counted. The winner is the one with more discs on the board. The Black/White score is shown throughout the game, and the leader's panel lights up with a crown appearing. With an equal number of discs a draw is declared. Since there is no luck in the game, the outcome depends entirely on calculating the position, not on chance.
A disc in a corner cannot be flipped — it is the most valuable square. Strive to occupy the corners and don't hand them to the opponent.
A big flip early on often hurts: you open up convenient moves for the opponent. Sometimes it is better to flip fewer.
Squares next to an empty corner are risky: they give the opponent access to the corner itself. Move there with caution.
Keep more move options for yourself and limit the opponent's choices — then they will be forced to give you advantageous squares.
The start of Reversi is symmetric, so the first moves are almost forced: Black has just four equivalent mirror-image opening squares, and after that the choices narrow quickly. The goal of the opening is not to grab discs, but to occupy the central squares and avoid spilling out to the edges too early. Stay within the central 4×4 square: the middle cells are harder to take back, and each of them opens up new directions for flanking.
Black's first move (●, the gold cell) sits diagonally next to a white disc and pins it inside the central square.
A disc on the border early on is exposed and gets flipped straight back by the very first reply. Keep your mass in the centre until around move 20.
If you don't know what to do, mirror your opponent's move through the centre — that way you don't surrender the initiative and you keep the balance.
Diagonal moves give you a flank in several directions at once and keep your shape compact, rather than stretched out along a line.
A corner is almost never taken directly in a single move — you work up to it along the edge. The key technique: build your own line along the border so that your opponent is forced to place a disc on a C-square next to the corner, and on your next move you flank that line through the corner itself. Read the edge as a separate mini-game: whoever is forced to touch the square beside an empty corner first usually loses that corner.
By playing ● into the corner (the gold cell), Black flanks three white ○ along the edge and flips the whole row.
A row closed off by your disc in the corner becomes stable: your opponent can no longer win those cells back before the end of the game. That's exactly how a corner pays off — not with a single disc, but with a whole unflippable wall along two sides.
A lone disc of yours on the border with no corner to anchor it is a target. Move onto the edge only when there's an already-occupied corner behind it.
Build the position so your opponent has no moves left except the square beside the empty corner — then the corner falls to you on its own.
Strength in Reversi is the ability to calculate not your own move, but your opponent's reply. Before you place a disc, look: how many legal replies are you leaving your opponent, and is there a single forced one among them that leads them into a pit? The best move is often the one that gives your opponent exactly one option — and it's a bad one for them.
White (○) is surrounded — only one move is left, into a disadvantageous cell (gold): Black has driven the opponent into a mobility trap.
Play your move in your head, then find the opponent's best reply. If it's unpleasant for you — look for a different move of your own.
The right to move in Reversi is often a burden. Sometimes it pays to "hand" your opponent a forced move that exposes a bad square to them.
A move that flips a single disc deep in the centre usually preserves more future options for you than capturing a whole row.
Most of a beginner's lost games come from two or three recurring mistakes, not from complex strategy. Let's go over them on diagrams so you recognise the situation over the board before you make your move.
A flashy capture: ● flips everything around it — but now the black disc is surrounded by white and flips back just as easily, and mobility has dropped.
⚫ How many discs to flip, what to do when nothing flips, who wins if a player can't move — the reversi rules explained with examples in our blog: Reversi (Othello) rules: flipping discs, when to pass.