when I started to think about improving Cheversi I cannot stop, lol ... one thing is for sure with random placement of the pieces ... someone will have an advantage from the very beginning ... does this advantage really mean much ? Look at Ludo for example ... the other thing is, that with random placement White (starting color) has usual advantage as a first player (leader) like in Five in a row, or Reversi ... but Black has the last move which balances this advantage by White ...
To play well random placement Cheversi is a real art and I think that computer power should be emplyed in order to solve this game ... by the way, can you calculate how many different placemet of 16 pieces can be on a board with 64 squares ... ?
This is how many starting positions we may have.
In our lifetimes we will never encounter the same position. And this makes Random Cheversi an exciting game.
and that's it for now.
Andy.