Saturday, July 16, 2005

Black or White?

Last night, on the train ride for home from a night out of chess and jazz, my mate and I got to talking about who has the advantage: black or white. I always thought that it was white thanks to his first move advantage. In fact, I remember that this very issue was discussed over a coupla thousand posts on some Y! chess forum somewhere. In that discussion, if I remember correctly, it was comprehensively proven that white definitely has that advantage.
But my mate thinks other wise.
His thinking goes simply like this. Whatever white plays, black basically dictates the course of the game by choosing the opening or defence he plays.
What do you all think?

1 comment:

jo said...

Definitely.
I agree with your mate.
A tempo behind is easily made up in amateur chess and as Black you do have the direction very much in hand. (Except against the dratted Alapin of course :-)