Nope, player to move second (== black at BK) is guarenteed a win on perfect play. However, i haven't heard of program with such capability being publicly available. It took weeks on SGI workstation originally solve the game.

Yes, there are some very strong othello programs. The Moor beat world champion in 1980 and since then programmes have been able to match human world championship level players. In 1997 program called Logistello did beat the current world champion Murakami 6-0 in six matches. Of course using such programs is considered cheating and it is prohibited in BK user agreement.

Surely it is quite hard to know if someone is using such program or if he/she is just a very good player. Personally, i don't even bother thinking about that. If someone chooces to use such tools, they're only fooling themselves. It doesn't take anything away from me as i'm not obsessed with ratings and stats. I still enjoy my games no matter whom i play against.

If you suspect someone is using such programs, try talking to them about the game. There might be something fishy if someone plays like a pro but cannot explain the moves. Also try playing them in 6x6 or 10x10 as programs for those are not quite as strong as the regular 8x8 ones. At least i'm not aware of such programs.

In my opinion, even if you think you have a strong case about someone being a cheat, it is not worth to go public with your accusations. It just causes bad feelings, flamewars and such. And the accusations could be false, it's not a easy task to prove someone cheats. If you think someone does cheat and you're bothered about it, just don't play against him/her anymore.

6x6 has been solved. With optimal play player 2 is guaranteed a 19-17 win with parallel opening position and 20-16 with diagonal opening. More info at: http://www.feinst.demon.co.uk/Othello/6x6sol.html

I guess the bigger ones will not be solved ever.

Usually fixed diagonal starting position is used so the parellel starting might be confusing to seasoned reversi veterans :) Other than that its really not an issue. At least not in 8x8 nor in 10x10.

Better luck next time Stevie :)

I think Arnies rating should be restored to whatever it was before the timeouts (2300ish?). Now wins against him (just got one \o/ ) don't count for much ratingwise and losses against him make a big hit to the rating.

I don't consider myself very strong player, typical club player if even that. Although my 8x8 rating is 2100ish and that puts me 4th in the rankings. To me this looks like there aren't many good players or they haven't played enough games to get their rating up to their level. I think we would need more established rankings and some more top players to make the BKR more comparable to real life. But most of the top players will probably avoid this site until the real rules are applied.

Before coming to Brainking.com, I always thought that othello and reversi are exactly the same game. When I first came to this site I was really confused (and still am) about the set of rules Brainking uses. Since then i've been told several times that they actually are different games and have different rules on the opening game.

In othello the diagonal opening setup is fixed and black goes first. Some say that reversi is different and the rules used here are correct for reversi. I have not seen a official ruleset that would back this up. All of the rulebooks that i've seen explain the official othello rules. Some of them say "othello is also known as reversi" or the other way around. I really would like to see information that would end my confusion about this reversi/othello thing.

I think atleast part of the problem is that Othello is a registered trademark licensed to Mattel Inc. I've played reversi on quite a few sites and this is the only one that does not use the official othello rules. I don't know much about trademarks or licenses. Maybe just calling the game reversi instead of othello is enough to avoid licensing fees even if othello rules are used. I'm confused.

Gary, its player2 who has sure win in 6x6.