Basic Rules for Playing Othello
On each turn, Black or White gets to place a single piece of their color on any empty space on the board. If your team is Black, for example, the basic idea is to place your piece next to a single white piece or a row of whites, so that you will have a Black piece on either side of the row of whites, with no empty spaces in between. In this set up, all of the whites in between your two black pieces will be flipped-over and will become black.

Any move that can use this method (a line of whites with blacks on both ends, one of which is newly placed) to flip an opponent’s piece is acceptable, while any move that does not succeed in flipping even one piece is not allowed. (Don’t worry too much on this point, if the move isn’t legal, then to drop in a piece won’t work.) The opponents pieces can be flipped along any line (horizontal, vertical, or diagonal) branching out from the newly placed piece. If a move allows for the opponents pieces to be flipped in more than one direction, than the pieces in all of those directions will be flipped.

Notice that if you get a piece in one of the corners, it is impossible for the other team to capture that piece because this would constitute placing a piece off of the edge of the board! Because corners cannot be captured, they are extremely useful, and it is good strategy to try to get them.

The object of the game, as in nearly all games, is to win. And in Othello, the winner is the team with the most pieces of their color at the end of the game--which is when no possible moves remain for either white or black. The board does not necessarily have to be filled for there to be no moves left and for the game to end.
On the unusual happening that one team will have no available moves before the end of the game, then that teams turn is automatically skipped, and the other team gets to play.

Enjoy!

If you have any questions or comments, I will be happy to reply to any emails at:
Jason@WeBelieveIn.net
-Author and Programmer: Jason Okerman

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