Reversi Strategy

Reversi is an interesting game. Those of you who havent played it could play it at Yahoo.

What almost gaurantees a win in Reversi is control of the corners. Therefore the main thing in Reversi is not to allow your opponent control of the corners.

One way to ensure that you capture the corners is to keep as few coins as possible in the beginning. If you have too many coins they restrict your play. With fewer coins you gain control of the game and can force your opponent to give you the corners. Once you have captured these you can reverse an incredibly large number of coins in the final few moves of the game to gaurantee yourself a victory.

Controlling the corners is vital in a game of Reversi, but it is also obvious. Strive to be the first player on the outermost ring. With your token on an edge, it is much simpler to work your way toward a corner. It is also easier to keep your opponent off of that edge than for your opponent to take it from you.

In your attempts to capture border spaces, do not rush. If possible, do not place any of your tokens on the second-outermost ring until absolutely necessary. Doing so opens up the outer ring for your opponent. When your opponent places a token on the second-outermost ring, capture it by placing a token of your own in the outermost ring if you are able. You now have a much more powerful position, and you're much more prone to take the corner because you beat your opponent to the border. The second-outermost ring is is composed of the spaces marked with a %% below.

+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+
|  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |
+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+
|  |%%|%%|%%|%%|%%|%%|  |
+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+
|  |%%|  |  |  |  |%%|  |
+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+
|  |%%|  |  |  |  |%%|  |
+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+
|  |%%|  |  |  |  |%%|  |
+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+
|  |%%|  |  |  |  |%%|  |
+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+
|  |%%|%%|%%|%%|%%|%%|  |
+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+
|  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |
+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+

Reversi is just as much about controlling your opponent's tokens as it is about controlling your own. The power of a Reversi space is directly proportional to its distance from the center of the board. Keep your opponent out of the outermost ring, and you are almost guaranteed a victory.

Thanks to maxClimb for pointing out that the power of a Reversi space is actually directly proportional to its distance from the center of the board. I knew what I meant and typed the exact opposite anyway.
/me can't believe he did that.