Othello notation, a1 to h8

Learning this takes about a minute and it changes what you can do. You can write a game down, send it to someone, look up an opening by name, or paste a position straight back into the board on this site.

The grid

The board is eight squares by eight. Each column gets a letter, a on the left through to h on the right. Each row gets a number, 1 at the top through to 8 at the bottom. A square is named column first, then row.

abcdefgh

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So the four corners are a1 at the top left, h1 at the top right, a8 at the bottom left and h8 at the bottom right. The four centre squares are d4, e4, d5 and e5.

The starting position in notation

Every modern game begins the same way. White discs go on d4 and e5, black discs go on d5 and e4, and Black moves first.

abcdefgh

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Black's only legal first moves are d3, c4, f5 and e6, and they are all the same move seen from a different angle. Tournament records normalise every game so it starts with f5, which is why every named opening begins there.

Writing a whole game

A game transcript is just the squares in the order they were played, run together with nothing in between:

f5d6c3d3c4

Read it in pairs: f5, d6, c3, d3, c4. Black moves first and the players alternate, so the odd-numbered moves are Black's and the even-numbered ones are White's. That five-move transcript is the opening called the Tiger.

abcdefgh

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Nothing else is recorded. There are no capture symbols, no check marks and no move numbers, because Othello does not need them. Every move is a placement, and the rules decide the rest.

Passes are not written down

When a player has no legal move they pass, and their opponent moves again. Transcripts leave passes out completely.

That sounds like lost information, but it is not. A pass is never a choice; it happens only when the rules leave you no square at all. Anyone replaying the transcript from the start will reach the same forced pass at the same point, so writing it down would add nothing. It does mean that if you count colours through a long game record, you will sometimes find the same player moving twice in a row. How passing works.

Other formats you will meet

The a1 to h8 grid is universal, but people separate the moves differently. All of these describe the same game:

• f5d6c3d3c4, the compact form used by most databases.
• f5 d6 c3 d3 c4, spaced out for reading.
• F5d6C3d3C4, capitals for Black and lower case for White.
• f5-d6-c3-d3-c4, hyphenated, common in forum posts.

The capitals convention is worth knowing because it is used in some game databases. Capitals mean Black, lower case means White. It carries no extra information, since the colours already alternate, but it makes a long record easier to scan and it shows up immediately when a pass has happened.

Copying a game in and out of the board

The board on this site writes exactly the format above. Every move you play is added to the move list beside the board as it happens, and that list is selectable text you can copy.

1. To save a game, copy the move list. Paste it anywhere. That string is the whole game.
2. To replay a game, paste a transcript back into the move list. The board replays it move by move and leaves you in the final position, ready to carry on.
3. To share a position, use Copy link. The transcript travels in the web address, so whoever opens it sees the same board.

The reader is deliberately forgiving. Capitals, spaces, commas, semicolons, full stops, hyphens, slashes and brackets are all stripped out, and the word "pass" is ignored wherever it appears. If a move in the transcript could not legally have been played, the board says which move number is wrong rather than silently doing something else.

Square names worth knowing

Once you can name squares, the strategy pages get much easier to follow. Four groups of squares come up constantly.

abcdefgh

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abcdefgh

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• Corners, a1, h1, a8 and h8. Permanent from the moment you take one. Corner strategy.
• X-squares, b2, g2, b7 and g7. Diagonally next to a corner, and usually a gift.
• C-squares, the two edge squares beside each corner: b1 and a2 by a1, g1 and h2 by h1, a7 and b8 by a8, h7 and g8 by h8. Both explained.
• Edges, everything on row 1, row 8, the a file and the h file. Edge play.

Reading a game record out loud

Players say the letter then the number: "f five, d six, c three". Some federations say "black f5" and "white d6" for clarity when commentating. There is no accepted spoken shorthand beyond that, because there is nothing else to say. One square per turn is the whole language.

If a term on this page is new, the glossary defines every one of them, and the rules page covers the moves themselves.