White's opening advantage disapates quickly when black acheives equality, with best play of course. Show me an opening from the start with best play where black cannot equalize. In addition, a slight advantage like this in an endgame just means that black might be at a disadvantage without winning chances, but the game can still be drawn. So to say from the start that white wins is kind of silly.
Solving chess
Sort:
Oldest
Teach me how to prove my argument by assuming that it is already true!
┼
Conquistador wrote:
White's opening advantage disapates quickly when black acheives equality, with best play of course. Show me an opening from the start with best play where black cannot equalize. In addition, a slight advantage like this in an endgame just means that black might be at a disadvantage without winning chances, but the game can still be drawn. So to say from the start that white wins is kind of silly.
You might think so, but a 0.15 advantage is a 0.15 advantage. Also, you must take into note the in master games white winning chances are 10% higher with roughly 40% 1-0 30% 0-1 and 30% 1/2-1/2.
Again, show me an opening that with best play, black cannot equalize. If there was a win for white, it will have to show from the opening. Just because a computer says that the starting position is .15, it does not mean anything considering that is the initiative because white moves first.
You assume that any advantage at all will be retained through to the endgame, and that it will be enough to win. But is .15 of a pawn enough to mate with? Can it be held through the entire game?
More to the point, if chess is actually a draw, the estimation that the first move advantage is worth .15 of a pawn is actually a miscalculation -- the first move advantage is worth nothing.
I don't have time to look over the 1000's of openings to see where black can't equalize. But, I'm sure this super computer that cracks chess won't use modern day openings. New lines are being found all the time. And there is an advantage for white, enough to win sometimes. If not there would not be a 10% stat plus.
How do you know there is an advantage for white? I think maybe you are starting with an unfounded assumption.
I think I'll go get a drink and see where this thread ends up...
Regarding drawing inferences from master game database statistics:
Did you know that a deer will beat a human in a 200 meter footrace every time?
This doesn't mean that the deer has an advantage in all footraces though -- in fact, over a long enough distance the deer will tire and die from exhaustion long before a human will.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persistence_hunting
Perfect play and human play are at least as distinct as the two races in the analogy above.
Actually, computer's play openings based on the databases created from all the GMs work on theory. On the subject of openings, computers are awful without the use of an opening book or database and are manhandled by GMs in the opening. So for a computer to say there is an advantage in the starting position is laughable.
No, Conquistador, you don't understand; computers are perfect at everything and that means that if it says that white has a tiny advantage that really means white wins by force.
That's what I'm trying to say.
@Conquitador, modern computers use opening databases but a perfect computer wouldn't need to as it would have the best move at any given time.
Whatever numerical advantage a specific chess engine gives at the start of the game is purely arbitrary. If the computer could calculate the real advantage with 100% accuracy, it would mean that chess would already have been solved. If it were a forced victory for white, the advantage might as well be +999.99999999. The number actually given stems from a numerical interpretation of material vs. position that is different with each engine.
We all know that chess won't be solved anytime soon. It's been discussed many times.
With perfect play, white would win. Let me tell you why,
This is a dead win for whoever moves. That is white, so, white gets a 0.15+ advantage. Even a 0.05 would win, so if you were playing "perfect" white you might as when resign! Even if black plays perfectly too, white has a forced mate in ?. That's the magic number no one knows.
Opinions anyone?