In Greenwich Village, tic-tac-toe is played in an atypical way. At each turn a player marks as many squares as he wishes provided they are in the same vertical or horizontal row (they need not be adjacent). The winner is the one who marks the last square.

Which player has the advantage, and what strategy should he employ?

"At night they come without being fetched,
And by day they are lost without being stolen."

"I never was, am always to be,
No one ever saw me, nor ever will
And yet I am the confidence of all
To live and breathe on this terrestrial ball."