Marshmud: Have you ever wanted to move to a square & your opponents piece has that square covered & you can't move to it? THAT is the advantage.

If black picks to start on the SAME color square as white, then black will have the option to "cover" many squared and force white not to move there.... and white will NEVER have that same ability to "cover" any squares.

So as black, if I see my opponent going after a big 9x square, I will try to "cover" it so they can't... and usually they did not plan on that and end up having to go to a much smaller square.