AbigailII: Hi Abigaill ... I just jumped into this board and had no time to meditate on this issue ... so basically you are saying that in order to enforce the rule Knights should start on different colored squares ?
Thanks for your insight ...
Andy.

dicepro: No, I'm not saying that. What I am saying is that if the knights start on the same square, only the white knight can find itself blocked to access certain squares (because those squares are attacked by the black knight); if the knights start on different squares, only the black knight will be effected. And since it's black who decides whether the knights start on the same or on a different square, black has the advantage.

OTOH, white goes first, and that's an advantage as well (in this game, black will never have more moves than white, but sometimes white has one more move than black, and almost every move scores (except when hitting 00)). What the bigger advantage is, I do not know.

AbigailII: That is interesting - something I did not think about before.

Of course I had thought that white would have the advantage from going first, but black can "counter" that advantage by starting on the same color square as white.

Of course if I'm black, would I rather start of the same color square as white - or start on the square which will lead me to the most points in my first 5 planned-out moves?

AbigailII: it looks like nature helped to make this game kind-of-equal for both sides ... but on the other hand, players do not even need approach each other if they choose so ... they may choose to grab as many high value squares and commit suicide ... this is one of the strategy I can see now ... Abigaill, thanks for your analysis ... I think this game has more to it than just jumping ... as one of my opponent said: you get out of this game what you want ... kids can play and collect points and computers can use their brain power to find a perfect solution for every possible move ...
Andy.