Where does Reversi come from?

Reversi has a genuinely colourful history, complete with a Victorian invention dispute and a Japanese reinvention. Here is the short version.

Quick answer: Reversi was popularised in England in the 1880s, when Lewis Waterman and John Mollett each claimed to have invented it and published competing rules. It was sold by Jaques and Son as a Victorian parlour game. In 1973, Goro Hasegawa standardised the rules and fixed opening in Japan and marketed the game as Othello, which drove a worldwide boom.

Victorian origins

Reversi emerged in 1880s England, where two rival inventors, Lewis Waterman and John Mollett, each claimed authorship and published competing rule sets. The London firm Jaques and Son sold it, and it became a popular parlour game played with double-sided counters. Its defining features - the 8x8 board, the two colours and the flanking capture - have stayed remarkably stable ever since, and you can play that classic on the board today.

The Othello reinvention

In 1973, Japanese salesman Goro Hasegawa standardised the modern rules, fixed the four-disc diagonal opening and marketed the game as Othello. The trademarked version spread worldwide, spawned the World Othello Championship in 1977, and became the form most people learn today. "Reversi" now usually means the free classic; "Othello" means Hasegawa's standardised game.

Play the Victorian classic

Related questions

What is the difference between Reversi and Othello?

Reversi and Othello use the same rules - place a disc to flank and flip your opponent's pieces. The differences are historical: Reversi is the older Victorian game that traditionally lets players choose where the first four discs go, while Othello is the standardised, trademarked 1973 version that fixes those four discs in a diagonal cross.

What is Othello and how is it played?

Othello is the modern, standardised form of Reversi, created by Goro Hasegawa in 1973. It uses the same flank-and-flip capture on an 8x8 board, but fixes the four opening discs in a diagonal cross so every game starts identically. Dark moves first, and whoever owns more discs when the board fills wins.

What is Reversi?

Reversi is a two-player abstract strategy game played on an 8x8 board with double-sided discs, one colour per player. On your turn you place a disc so it traps a straight line of your opponent's discs between two of yours, flipping them all to your colour. When the board fills up, whoever has more discs wins.