Does white have more of an advantage than black?

Is there any advantage in being white over black, or vice versa?

Two things made me want to throw this question amongst the forums

1. Was thinking maybe white has more control over how the position develops by being one move ahead

2. In the master games database, white has a higher win rate than black

Obviously I don't think it will massively affect gameplay but am talking about miniscule changes

Por favor, seja relevante, útil e agradável!

White goes first.

This ability to go first gives them the chance to be ambitious in the center much more so than black.

And, in your expert opinion, is that true at all rating levels?

And I should've mentioned, my linguistic skills are limited to English

I don't claim to be any expert on Chess but my experience is that in a lot of games, if I had been the next to move I would have won but because I wasn't I lost. Being one move ahead seems to be an advantage.

If you don't mind false comparatives, I believe it becomes more true the higher the ratings level. (Assuming you mean both players are similar ratings?)

White advantage in GM practice is ~40 elo.

Yeah, there's just about no first-move advantage between beginners.

Wikipedia is your friend:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-move_advantage_in_chess

I wonder if the advantage is partly psychological? If, being black, you believe a draw is "a win" then you are more likely to play defensively rather than playing to win?

... and so it becomes a self-fulfiling prophecy...

It is a big advantage at the top level because they understand exactly what thy are doing.  At lower levels such as where I am (and I am around the 95th percentile on chess.com so "lower levels" basically means almost everybody!) it makes a far smaller difference.

In online/daily chess my winning % with black is pretty much identical to white.  In Standard it is way higher but from a small statistically unrepresentative sample and in Blitz and Bullet chess I do slightly better with White, but not much.

Moving first gives a tempo advantage, really nothing else.  At the top level they know who to use tempi.  At lower levels players don't know openings and theory anywhere near as well so they will often throw away tempi here and there rendering the colour far less relevant than who threw away the more tempi (or made even worse mistakes)

Yes.

At the elite level, yes the first move is somewhat of an advantage.  At our level, no its not an advantage.

It's always an advantage regardless of the level. The difference is that lower-rated players don't make use of the advantage. Skill level of the players does not change the objective evaluation of a position.

I am a novice, so perhaps my opinion is invalid, but I found after playing against the computer a lot (before I discovered this joint. thanks for being here) I was too lazy to change the start up from white to black. 

When I first got on here I lost a lot of black games because I needed to change my tactics and way of thinking. Now I don't feel either is much of a difference at my level. It seems more often than not, time, and silly mistakes make more difference than colour.

Also I have found some guys play better defensively and some better in an attacking manner. Often times I find counter attack can throw off an attacker quite well no matter what the starting colour.

It's still an advantage, just not as much as GM level.

Until patzers stop dropping their pieces, opening advantages will be an endangered species for them.

Yes, I'd say about +0.15. thats why black must always first look to equalise then play for advantage, But an advantage of 0.15 is not enough to win the games. Lets say they both play equally from start to finish, then we get a draw, so that little advantage is pretty unbias.

As with any chess game, it depends on who is white and who is black.

Yes almost 1/3 of a pawn,in the opening.