The Official Othello Game Rules
1. Othello Game Board and Discs
Othello is a strategy board game played between two players. It is played using a square 8 ¥ 8 board and 64 discs. The discs are coloured black on one side and white on the opposite side. Each player shall be assigned to play a colour.

2.

Object of the Game
The Object of the game is to have the majority of colour discs on the board at the end of the game.

3.

Game Set-up
The game will be set-up with 2 black discs and 2 white discs at the centre of the board. They are arranged with black forming a North-East to South-West direction and white forming a NorthWest to South-East direction. This is illustrated in Figure 1 on the right. Figure 1.

4.

Making Moves
A move is made by placing a disc of the player’s colour on the board in a position that “out-flanks” one or more of the opponent’s discs. The opponent’s disc(s), which is/are outflanked in that move, will then be flipped over to the player’s colour. A disc or row of discs is outflanked when it is surrounded at the ends by discs of the opposite colour. An illustration of the term “out-flanking”: In Figure 2 below, disc A is white, discs B, C, and D are black, white to move.

A

B

C

D

Figure 2.

White can out-flank discs B, C and D by placing disc E on the board as shown in Figure 3 below.

A

B

C

D

E

Figure 3.

After white had placed disc E, discs B, C, and D are flipped over to make them white. A single move may outflank any number of discs in one or more rows in any direction. All the discs, which are outflanked, will be flipped. Discs may only be

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outflanked as a direct result of a move and must fall in the direct line of the disc being played. This is illustrated below. The board is labeled for convenience of illustration. In Figure 4, it is white’s turn to move. If white choose to move to C5, as shown in Figure 5, the move will flip the black discs at C6, D6, E7, D5 and D4. The result is shown in Figure 6 below.
A 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 A B C D E F G H B C D E F G H 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 A B C D E F G H A B C D E F G H 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Figure 4.
A B C

Figure 5.
D E F G H 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 A B C D E F G H 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

In Figure 6 on the right, note that even though the black disc at E6 appears to be outflanked when the move is made, it is not flipped because the disc being played at C5 does not outflank it. Note also that the black disc at F5 is not flipped. The move at C5 outflanks the black disc at D5 but not the disc at F5 because E5 is a white disc.

Figure 6.

5.

Game Play
The game will start with black making a move. Play then alternates between white and black until one of the following occur: 5.1 There are no moves that the player can make to outflank the opponent’s disc(s). The player is then said to have no valid moves. 5.2 Both players have no valid moves. When a player has no valid moves, he forfeits his turn and the opponent continues to move. A player is not allowed to voluntarily forfeit his turn. The game ends when both players have no valid moves or when the entire board has been played.

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