If i can suggest one thing Fencer don't implement those variants... One has the problem of making impossible the task of one coulor the other if one player wants to stuck the game, the game could last forever, and the win will become for tireness not for strategy...
I know i'm not the majority of the players and I'm just a pawn but please reconsider, now you have one game that nobody (in his sense) wants to play don't transform in 2 variants that no one wants to play it ...
just my 2 cents of course...

Don't know... Its difficult to see and test it... The empty row will have what links? I think black could (depending of the links) start the game with one piece less with just the first white move. In that assumption they will be better than actually...

Finnaly I can see some mouvement about the game!
My opinion is Alfonso rules kill the game as Bell Rules do. Alfonso make the game tied infinitaly boring... Bell gave no chance to black.
My suggestion is to play with Bell rules, but just with 10 pieces, remove the 2 most advance pieces for both players.

mickez: we can try it but i don't think its the solution... Hmmmmm.
But its a suggestion any others, Alquerque community?
I wonder if we can convince Fencer to change a little bit the rules to make this game interesting...

Rod I don't want to be a "pleasure spoil" but how can you improve your skills in a game that you don't have a chance if you play a certain color?
The game its not balanced but surely between us can change slightly the rules to improve the game thats what i was meaning...
Until now my conclusion is maybe with a different set of pieces, maybe remove the 2 most advance on the board, to have an equivalent set to checkers, id est with 2 complete rows - 8 pieces. But now i'm thinking that, I don't have how to test it... :-(

Any ideas about how to improve this game?
Seems very unbalanced to me... but the statistics here doesn't say that, I know... but the advanced players surely know what I'm refering... ;-)