Perfect first move for white seems to be e1 or g5.

Best first move for black always seems c3,d3 or i3,h3 trying to split the empty space the best.

Best white 2 dvonn piece seems to be very close to either of the other 2 dvonn pieces in such a way that fewest to-be-placed discs can benefit from it.

White first move AFTER the setup seems indeed to be extremely strong. I dare place a bet that white should win dvonn after a decent setup.

Jan, do you mean placing the first red piece at e1?

Rex

yes

Why do you consider these to be good moves?

Thanks…

I'd like to see more discussion about strategy, and setup strategy especially. So here's my bit:

Jan is most probably right. If Jan is too right, if the setup is much stronger than other kinds of setups, I believe there might be seed for Dvonn to lose some of it's richness, but that happens…

On the other hand black has an initiative after dvonn rings. If strong enough setup could be played, black would be a winner of an ideal game. This might lead to a very different strategy for white. If white plays his first dvonn at F3, he can then mirror every placement - or as long as black plays good moves. In this way white loses most of his first move advantage (to some extent black can even start mirroring white's moves as stacking begins), but at least it is very hard for black to have any kind of positional advantage.

More generally black will have advantage if there is a single good spot at the board. Black can for example try to get an odd number of spaces around dvonn rings as they are very valuable spaces. White should either duplicate or eliminate any single good spot with his second dvonn. Ofcourse this can be done following Jan's guidelines.

All that said, dvonn ring placement roughly sets the spirit of a game, and more than strive for the best stategy, I think one should try to make a game that best fits his style. If Dvonn pieces are far apart in more or less straight line (eg. B3, F3, I3), beginning of the stacking phase is probably pretty peaceful, but endgame can bring big suprises. Good if your strength lies in calculating when moves get fewer or if you are hoping to get lucky. If dvonn pieces are close together and at the borders (eg. A1, B2, B4), the game can be very agressive from the very start. Good if you are better at clever plotting than playing good basic moves. If dvonn pieces are relatively close and not in straight line (eg. C2, G4, E1), you might hope for throughout peaceful game, where good basic play matters the most.

I've very rarely found the color to matter much, although I have many times ended up with an initial setup that was clearly not advantageous ;-)

I think one point missing from Jan's original conclusion is that it is not necessarily important to be in control of all 3 dvonn pieces. It is much more important to be in control of the associated territories, and hence one must seek to increase the size of the territories one controls.

As for strategy, I think you are mostly right in your advice. When the dvonns are close together the game quickly enters the late stage, in which it becomes possible to see how the game will develop and to plot accordingly. Hence, this ability is needed in all games, for such is the nature of Dvonn :-)

I don't like this frozen setup. I like a free setup, like the original game. May be for a new player it would be OK

Monthly cups and championships have the original setup.