Talk:First-move advantage in chess

Quote

"In chess, unlike tennis, it is not possible to win by serving an ace."

– Irving Chernev, chess writer

Let me add ...

"When I am White I win because I am White. When I am Black I win because I am Bogolyubov."

- Efim Bogoljubov

WHPratt (talk) 17:18, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

Fastest checkmate

The quote underscoring the article reminded me that Black can win actually faster than White. In 2 moves, that is. Assuming White goes for a complete give-away, of course:

1. g4 e5. 2. f4 Qh4#

Such a game of folly by Black can result in a loss only on the 3rd move, as White has to make an extra move - a3 or some such - to wait for Black to "open up"... By the way, I swear I really did a novice player in this way once.78.25.121.60 (talk) 08:10, 13 October 2014 (UTC)

Problems with the recent NCO edit on Nimzovitch-Larsena and Owens

I have several issues with the recent NCO edit on the Nimzovitch-Larsen and Owens. Most importantly it ascribes views to Nunn that aren't explicit in his writing, based on the editor's interpretation of the symbolic evaluation of a very small number of lines in NCO. (Each opening gets only a single column [although NCO layout uses rows for variations], with a small number of side variations.) I think the editors interpretation is unwarranted. Nunn's evaluation of Owen's is "White is slightly better". White is slightly better is the most common evaluation in the book, and Black frequently adopts variations in which White is slightly better for reasons that are obvious to any experienced chess player. Translating +/= to "leaves black at a disadvantage" is very misleading in this context, and I think wrong. If addition is to remain (and I think it should be removed), the language must be changed to match precisely what Nunn indicates (White is slightly better), not the editor's spin. There are other issues too, such as calling Nunn's 15-year-old work "the modern view". It's a single more modern view, but that isn't enough evidence that it is the modern view. Staunton's opinion is attributed to Staunton, but symbolic evaluations of two obscure lines in a book that devotes little time to either are elevated to the modern view, which is also wrong. Finally evaluations of openings can change frequently, and I do not agree with editors scanning down the columns of NCO or MCO or similar sources and then making pronouncements on entire openings based on the evaluation symbols they find at the end. This is basically an original research or undue weight issue. As a final side note, I was disappointed that when I asked for page numbers in the cite the editor restored his edit without including the page numbers in the reference. I thought that to be rather rude. Quale (talk) 15:50, 14 June 2015 (UTC)

I don't think it is inaccurate to call 1.b3 = and 1.e4 b6 +/= the modern view. How many sources do you want to back up this tangential point? There are references given in the Owen's Defence lead for starters. Cobblet (talk) 00:38, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

"The current view" would be a more NPOV phrasing, "current" doesn't have the emotional implications of "modern". Also agree that "slightly better for White" is a more accurate reflection of the source. MaxBrowne (talk) 01:28, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

That isn't what the edit says, Cobblet. The source says "White is slightly better", the edit says "black is at a disadvantage". That isn't even close to an accurate reflection of the source. Second, the edit claims the modern view is different than Staunton's view. I think that's simply incorrect. Staunton did not say Black was equal in Owen's, he said "playable". As far as I know, +/= is often playable for Black. In this specific instance, I think Owen's qualifies as playable. If Black were not able to play any opening that might leave White with a slight advantage, there wouldn't be many defenses left. Third, Staunton also said 1.b3 is worse than other lines for White because it is essentially defensive, and I think that is precisely the modern view as well. NCO couldn't possibly be used to rebut the opinion that 1.b3 is defensive, because "=" says absolutely nothing about whether an opening is defensive, aggressive, neutral, or anything really. So the source doesn't contradict Staunton at all, despite the way the editor slanted the edit. Finally, unlike Staunton, NCO does not compare Nimzovitch-Larsen and Owen's directly at all. It's pure WP:SYNTH to concoct a comparison between these openings that the source does not make. The edit is poor. If you want to know how many sources I want, how about a source that 1) directly compares the two openings in question rather than being the product of editor synthesis, and 2) actually says something qualitative about the openings rather than the essentially quantitive and bloodless = or +/=. Quale (talk) 01:44, 16 June 2015 (UTC)

I think MaxBrowne's latest edits (the ones made 24 hours before your latest reply here) have made the sentence more neutral in tone, and I believe both parts of the sentence as it stands now are verifiable and putting them together does not constitute WP:SYNTH. I agree though that NCO is not an appropriate source for either part of the sentence. Cobblet (talk) 11:31, 16 June 2015 (UTC)

Max Browne's edits were made an hour after your odd initial comment, so unless you were commenting on what you knew would be the future state of the article rather than the edits that existed at that time, I don't understand what you're complaining about. Forgive me if you can or condemn me if you must, but I read your comment as applying to the article that existed at the time you made it, not the article an hour later after another editor smoothed some rough edges. I still think that the insertion doesn't improve the article at all, although it isn't terribly harmful. Not every verifiable statement is helpful or appropriate at every point in an article, and it can be a synthesis violation to combine two true statements (1.b3 = and 1.e4 b6 +/=) into a claim that the source doesn't make (NCO doesn't say that Staunton's view is incorrect.) The edit uses synthesis to imply that the modern view is different than Staunton's, and I don't think this is true. Even if it is true, you simply can't demonstrate that by looking at variation evaluations in NCO. I think sometimes Wikipedia editors try too hard to rescue bad edits. Sometimes the articles are better when bad edits are simply be removed entirely. Quale (talk) 13:16, 16 June 2015 (UTC)

My initial comment was in response to you questioning the facts presented, which I believe are verifiable; I did not dispute your other concerns with regards to NPOV and SYNTH. And I'm not complaining about anything, just pointing out that some of those concerns have been resolved since the initial edit. As it stands right now, I don't think there's any implication that the modern view is markedly different from Staunton's. Cheers, Cobblet (talk) 21:42, 16 June 2015 (UTC)

Thanks to all those who have contributed to this discussion. There are some important points that should answer the sometimes slightly misguided questions that arose.

Firstly, NCO (and its predecessors such as Korn) is the analog of an encyclopedia to chess openings. MCO is another (multi-volume) example, but not on my shelf. Its contents are largely a summary of the conclusions of thousands of books on chess openings, supplemented by a database of all master games.

What NCO (i.e. its four authors) "says" is the evaluations it attaches to the lines. A strong chess player will realise that English is not necessary.

Secondly, considerable experience and use of NCO and others over the years means I realise something that some people here don't: that the large majority of critical opening lines are assessed by Nunn and his colleagues as equal. What this means is that although many lines give advantage to white, there is in most cases some choice of variations that gives black equality against all white alternatives. In some cases, black needs to tread a very narrow path, but it is only the dubious opening lines that leave black worse by force (in the sum total of the lines studied). [Checking this is made easier because the footnotes never overturn the analysis in the main lines in NCO: they rather offer alternatives that lead to the same or a worse evaluation for the side varying]. This is also what is found when all lines are analysed with modern engines.

As a result, the fact that black has no choice of lines in the Owen's where he reaches full equality (against best play by white) is significant, and identifies why top players do not consider the Owens a reliable defense. Elroch (talk) 13:52, 16 June 2015 (UTC)

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The Lede v The Article...

The lede opens with the sentence, "The first-move advantage in chess is the inherent advantage of the player (White) who makes the first move in chess," which is a definitive declaration that White has an inherent advantage. However the article which follows then makes it quite clear that there is no definitively proven, inherent advantage for White, with many theorists and players - some of them former World Champions and 2 of them the greatest players of all time - disagreeing with the conjecture. The second sentence immediately starts to back down from the initial declaration by saying that "Chess players and theorists generally agree that White begins the game with some advantage." We've gone from a definitive, inherent advantage for White, to a wishy-washy general agreement about "some advantage." Even that is deceptive though because the implication that all chess players and all theorists agree on this advantage is patently false; as a full reading of the article demonstrates. The third sentence backs away even further and makes an unproven, cause and effect claim that the supposedly definitive, inherent advantage for White is proven by the statistics when in fact:

1. The statistics can be interpreted in a different way - as is invariably the case with statistics - to show that this definitive, inherent advantage leads to White winning a little more than a third of the time; which certainly doesn't support the claim of a definitive, inherent advantage at all.

2. As shown in the main body of the article, there are other possible explanations for the statistics, such as the definitive, inherent advantage for White being nothing more than an unfounded, self-fulfilling prophecy which is nothing more than players believing White has an advantage and having that unfounded bias affect their play.

The bottom line here is that it is by no mean proven that White has a definitive, inherent advantage and the article should reflect that, rather than starting with the assertion that White has an advantage - as though it is a fact, which it is not - and presenting contrary views as being dissenters; which they are not. You wouldn't start an article about Vaccination with a claim that it causes autism, then present the evidence that it doesn't as a dissenting view; an example I use because Vaccination is an excellent example of statistics being used to prove a cause and effect relationship where none actually exists, exactly as the statistics are used here to 'prove' White's advantage. Neither should this article - or any article for that matter - start by presenting an unproven claim as true, then provide evidence to the contrary as a dissenting view. If a conjecture is unproven then it should be presented as such, with evidence for and against it then presented equally so that the reader can make their own determination. Doing otherwise, as is the case with this article, immediately predisposes the reader to believe the unproven claim is factual, then biases the evidence so that the dissenting view must provide stronger evidence just to be equal; which is ironic, given the nature of the article!

;-)

A patient, dispassionate, objective reader will come away from this article with the understanding that there is no definitive proof that White has an advantage in Chess. However a less patient and objective person who only reads the first few sentences will come away with the erroneous viewpoint that White has an advantage in Chess. That viewpoint is unproven and therefore wrong and, as such, the article needs to change. FillsHerTease (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 10:47, 4 December 2017 (UTC)

I intend to start changing the article to reflect that White having an advantage is an unproven conjecture - with arguments on both sides - if no one objects. I don't want to waste my time if it's just going to be reverted obviously, so I will leave this for 1 week and if no one has objected I will start making updates after that. FillsHerTease (talk) 13:51, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

I agree. The lead did appear to over-state the case that White has a definite advantage, at least when judged by the available references. For the time being I slightly rephrased the opening statement, and added two citation-needed tags.—LithiumFlash (talk) 03:16, 25 December 2017 (UTC)

I don't agree. The article was better before your changes. The claims in the lede are more than adequately referenced in the detail sections of the article. Quale (talk) 05:45, 25 December 2017 (UTC) BTW, "drawn with best play" and "White has an advantage" are not mutually exclusive claims or in conflict with each other. The article explains this in detail. Quale (talk) 05:47, 25 December 2017 (UTC)

This article should not have statements synthesized by Wiki editors, and bold statements require reliable references. The article currently does not have any references to support the statement "...the consensus has been that a perfectly played game would end in a draw."—LithiumFlash (talk) 12:47, 27 December 2017 (UTC)

Really? Did you read the article? The First-move advantage in chess#Drawn with best play section has citations saying chess is a draw from Steinitz, Lasker, Capablanca, Fischer, Fine, Rowson, Adjoran, and Watson (also quoting Kasparov). If you're not going to read the article you should not edit it or tag it. Quale (talk) 07:03, 29 December 2017 (UTC)

The article expresses a sampling of other opinions but it is certainly not a consensus. The lead should not state that there is a consensus (chess being a draw) when there are already sections in the article expressing other possible endings of perfect play. The lead should be both concise, and accurate. It is very misleading to tell readers that there is consensus when in fact there is none.—LithiumFlash (talk) 05:36, 30 December 2017 (UTC)