When we first started the variant, one person would start in the upper left and go straight across and then straight down, always moving and "thinking forward", while the opponent started in the lower right, and had to move to the left and then up, sort of like walking backwards both to the left and then up. This gave a very clear advantage to player 1. When we took turns at starting positions, almost everyone who started first won and the players who started on the bottom right lost.

After much testing at the suggestion of Lil Moosie of the Wolf Pack, we established that both players starting on the sides leveled the playing ground significantly. This layout has player 1 "thinking forward" for the first portion with player 2 "thinking backward" (still a slight initial advantage for player 1), but when they round the bend, player 1 has to "think backwards" and player 2 gets to "think forward", but with more tiles to work with, that gives player 2 the slight advantage on the second half. One advantage equalizes the other.