I recently finished mastering all the games in Clubhouse Games 51 Worldwide Classics for the Nintendo Switch. I’d almost done it a few months ago when I first got the game. I had been working my way through the various games usually bouncing around five of them until I mastered them and then dove into some others. However, it was near the end when I had eight or so games left to master that I started playing Renegade aka Reversi aka Othello in this package. It seemed like a simple game but I soon discovered it had more strategy to it than I had thought and soon the game seemed to be more complicated than Chess, Shogi or Riichi Mahjong due to the amount of times I’ve had to replay it.
It probably didn’t help that this was my first time ever playing the game of Renegade. With no idea of what kind of moves to make or what to look for on the board for the next best move, I was thwarted at just the Amazing CPU for some time. I felt I was improving over time and figuring out the strategy of the game and finally did beat that level of difficulty. Then I played the Impossible CPU and it was like I had learned nothing.
From what I’ve seen online when looking up help for better strategy for this game, it seems that I’m not alone in struggling to overcome Renegade to “master” it in Clubhouse Games. That’s why I decided to post this step-by-step guide for how to win against the Impossible CPU. There will likely be other people who pick up this game and wonder what they have to do in order to find a winning strategy against this CPU or there may be others like me who gave up on this challenge for some time but just want some way to beat it so they can get the medal and check this off their to-do list.
Now, I recognize that claiming one can beat the CPU every time seems like a pretty bold claim but it hasn’t failed me yet each time I run this sequence of moves. In my frustration at seemingly being back at square one when facing the Impossible CPU, I decided to see what happens if I play the CPU against itself in the hopes of at least getting a better idea of what opening moves I should be making. Because you can switch who is first and second player for a game, I started recording what move the CPU would make and then ending the game, swapping who was first and second and then using that move against the CPU and seeing what it did to respond. For the first move, I set myself as the second player and the CPU as the first player. It played its black chip on the board for the opening. I noted which spot it was and then quit the game. I then made myself first player and put my first black chip on the same spot. I then noted where it put its white chip for the second move. I then ended the game, swapped back to the second player position and started a new one.
To my surprise, the CPU never altered its opening move. It always put its black chip at the same location. As I began to copy the moves it made as the first and second player, the CPU never altered its pattern against itself. The result is that it basically gave me a pattern to follow in order to beat it and win the game. Thus, a player can beat the CPU every time because of the way it is programmed. It will always follow the same pattern of countermoves if you go in the order I’ve demonstrated below leading to the player’s eventual victory.
Below are six videos that I created on my Switch showing how this pattern and match will unfold. One can just copy the moves I make as the first player (black chips) to take down the Impossible CPU (white chips).
It was always great to see the message that the “CPU is thinking…” when playing Chess or Shogi because it affirmed to me that I was making things difficult for it and getting it into a corner. Seeing it happen when using the CPU’s strategy was still nice to see even if it wasn’t from any brilliant gameplay on my part. I guess this is what happens when you don’t hate the player and hate the game. Instead of getting upset at the Impossible CPU, I made it my ally to defeat itself and take down the game which still made me feel like I won in the end.
For anyone else struggling on this challenge, I hope this was helpful for you.
Pietriots 
Nice job! The line “CPU is thinking…” is oddly dystopic but it’s nice to know we can prevail in the end.
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Aw, thank you. There’s all this talk about how computers are taking our jobs. We can’t let them take our games as well! We must never surrender on this front!
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In renegade, I struggled at the hard CPU. You are better than me!
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