headius: The advantage does not necessarily belong to the first player, although it generally does. In a game like Reversi, I suspect that parity considerations may be important enough that the second player has an advantage.

But the main point is correct: the only way to ensure that a game is perfectly balanced is to have perfect symmetry between the two players at the start of the game. Of the games on this site, only Backgammon and its variants have this property.

Anyway, this being the Feature Requests board, I'd like to say that I wholeheartedly support both volant's and Mr. Shumway's proposals. I've wished for such a feature for a while, but have had to settle for 2-game matches.