Strategy

If both the height and width of the board are odd numbers the first player can easily win by starting in the middle square, and then playing the mirror image of the second player's move.

On even by even or even by odd sized boards there is no known winning strategy, and it makes for a challenging game.

History

The game was invented and analysed by László Kozma, a Romanian mathematician. It is described on his web site here:

http://www.lkozma.net/game.html