How to play
Every game on this site, with its rules written exactly as the computer applies them. The game pages go further, with strategy tips and answers to common questions.
Reversi
The game starts with four discs in the centre, two of each colour placed diagonally. Dark moves first. A move places one disc on an empty square so that at least one straight line of opposing discs, across, down or diagonally, lies between the new disc and another of your own. All discs in every such line are flipped to your colour.
If you have no legal move, you pass, and the opponent plays again. A pass is announced and played for you here. The game ends when neither player can move, usually when the board is full.
Four in a Row
The grid has seven columns and six rows. Dark moves first. On your turn you drop one disc into a column that is not full, and it falls to the lowest empty space in that column.
The first player to get four of their discs in an unbroken line, horizontally, vertically or diagonally, wins at once. If all 42 spaces are filled without such a line, the game is a draw.
Mill
The board has 24 points joined by lines. Light moves first. In the placement phase each player puts one man on any empty point per turn until all of them are on the board: nine each in the standard game, six on the smaller two-square board, twelve on the board with diagonals.
Line up three of your men along one straight line and you have a mill; each new mill lets you lift one enemy man off the board. Men sitting in a mill are protected, unless the opponent has nothing outside mills. A move that completes two mills at once still earns a single capture.
Dots and Boxes
Dots sit in a grid of 3×3 up to 6×6 boxes. Dark starts. A turn is a single line joining two dots that are next to each other, horizontally or vertically.
Finish the fourth side of a box and it becomes yours, and then you must draw once more. A single line may finish two boxes. The turn goes on for as long as each line closes something.
Draughts
A man steps one square diagonally forward to an empty dark square. To capture, it jumps a neighbouring enemy piece and lands on the vacant square just beyond, and the jumped piece leaves the board. Should a further jump be possible from where it lands, it keeps going: the whole chain belongs to one turn.
Capturing is compulsory. In the English game you may choose any capture when there are several, and men may capture kings. Dark moves first. A man that reaches the last row becomes a king, and promotion ends the move. Kings move and capture one square in any diagonal direction, forwards and backwards.
Five in a Row
Players take turns placing one stone on any empty intersection of the 15×15 grid. Dark places the first stone. Stones never move and are never removed.
The first player to make an unbroken line of five stones of their colour, horizontally, vertically or diagonally, wins. In the five or more variant a line of six or longer also wins; in the exactly five variant an overline of six or more does not count.
Guides
The double threat
The same trick ends games of mill, draughts and both line games: one move, two threats.
Chains, loops and control
How Dots and Boxes is really won: count the chains, give away two boxes, keep control.
Corners, mobility and parity
Why fewer discs can mean more moves, which squares to avoid, and who gets the last word.