Recently, I've been playing some Pah Tum, and have just read BK's discussion board on the game--much of which was devoted to finding ways to diminish the first player's advantage (which seems rather pronounced).  I wonder whether some kind of komi--as in the game of go--might help balance the results.  A value of about 3 or 3.5 ought to do the trick, but I'd like to hear some strong players' opinions as to an appropriate point value or the workability of this idea in general.  I think one of the discussion board participants (coan.net) expressed a similar idea.