# White vs Black in Chess



## PhotonGuy (May 4, 2015)

Anybody have a preference in which side to play in Chess? Sides are determined randomly and white has the advantage of offense with the first move while black has the advantage of defense and being able to counter white, so anybody got a preferred side?


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## Dirty Dog (May 4, 2015)

No.


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## Blindside (May 4, 2015)

I heard that the black pieces start out white, but get darkened by years of players handling them and the dirt and blood of their practice gets so ingrained into the wood and eventually they become black.


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## K-man (May 4, 2015)

White is the best as epitomised in ...


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## Touch Of Death (May 5, 2015)

White is cool, but as soon as they give up the advantage with a blunder or a back up, black is white, and white is black.


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## Dirty Dog (May 5, 2015)

Blindside said:


> I heard that the black pieces start out white, but get darkened by years of players handling them and the dirt and blood of their practice gets so ingrained into the wood and eventually they become black.



And a Chess Master will never wash their pieces, or all their knowledge will vanish.


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## donald1 (May 5, 2015)

i like and dislike chess... personally to me making chess strategies is confusing. i know the rules(or at least enough to play) and what to do but for me i choose to do whatever... i want to move this piece here! and this piece here! if it works out well i might do it again some other time


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## donald1 (May 5, 2015)

Dirty Dog said:


> And a Chess Master will never wash their pieces, or all their knowledge will vanish.



hopefully they wash their hands before they play!


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## tshadowchaser (May 5, 2015)

no choice  I usually at a loss no matter which one I play


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## elder999 (May 5, 2015)

PhotonGuy said:


> Anybody have a preference in which side to play in Chess? Sides are determined randomly and white has the advantage of offense with the first move while black has the advantage of defense and being able to counter white, so anybody got a preferred side?


All things being equal, white has a slight advantage in tournament play,  being the winning side in about 52% of all games since the 19th century....for novices, and in speed chess, this advantage diminishes....there used to be a lot of talk about the "draw death" of chess, whereby grandmaster level play would always end in a draw 9all things being equal, so to speak) but t his hasn't been the case, even with supercomputers playing each other.


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## elder999 (May 5, 2015)

I do enjoy ceding that advantage to someone I've never played, though....


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## Transk53 (May 5, 2015)

I had a ST:TNG chess set. Was very cool at the time. Anyway great game however traditional pieced  or not, but lacked the patience a lot of the time to play regularly.


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## Rich Parsons (May 5, 2015)

As Elder her pointed out there is an advantage for those who are skilled. 

As ToD pointed out is White plays safe and or blunders then the push can become Black. 

Of course this goes back and forth as evidenced by the 52/48 percentage numbers. 

Personally I like Black. I like to counter fight. I knew enough of the trick opening to avoid the quick mates and enough to get an idea of where they were going to attack. Sometimes it would target a weak / strong side knight. I might even use that as a bait to set a trap or an attack against one of their pieces. 

I played some in college on on the Chess team. I was never good enough or consistent enough to make 4th chair and go on competitions. Although we had a top 25 ranked player as our 1st chair/table, I was the only one to ever beat him one on one from our school and when he lost to others on the team it was because he was playing 4 or 5 at once and me. He even told me it was my unorthodox moves that made him stop and think. This included speed chess as well. His appraisal of me was to be more cautious up front or the memorize 16 moves deep on the top 25 openings and counters, and my end game would  make the difference. My style was in speed chess there are too many pieces to move slow, so get rid of them and see what you have left to play with and do your best. .


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## granfire (May 17, 2015)

ALWAYS BET ON BLACK!!!!

I hate chess. Regardless of color.


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## john2054 (May 29, 2015)

elder999 is wrong about one thing however. Grandmaster chess tournaments, especially between the world champion, do often end in draws. You only need to look at recent events for evidence of this. It is quite commonly respected that White has the adavantage, or intiative if you will, and between games which are won in the opening this if often enough. Hence we find many players memorizing tonnes of openings, confident that they are able to win games with them. Often because of the traps associated with thus. But players who choose to concentrate on their middle or endgames, will have other such strategies to bring to the table, when the opening is over. I hope that helps add to the discussion, from someone who actually actively plays.


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## elder999 (May 29, 2015)

john2054 said:


> elder999 is wrong about one thing however. Grandmaster chess tournaments, especially between the world champion, do often end in draws. You only need to look at recent events for evidence of this.


 
"Grandmaster draws," are draws by agreement, typically between  two participants in the last round of a tournament, often to guarantee shares in the prize money.

Magnus Carlsen  defended his classical chess world championship (he's also the speed chess champion and blitz champion, so white's not much of an advantage against him *ever* )  against Anand, again, in Nov. 2014, by a margin of 6.5-4.5, with a game to spare, so..........what "recent events" are you speaking of?








john2054 said:


> I hope that helps add to the discussion, from someone who actually actively plays.


 
What makes you think I don't "actually actively play?"

Or anyone else who's posted to this thread, for that matter?


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## john2054 (May 29, 2015)

7 of the 11 games in that match were draws. please check your facts out next time okay? Magnus Carlsen is FIDE World Chess Champion 2014 Chessdom


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## john2054 (May 29, 2015)

grandmaster draw is the result of a game, being a draw, as opposed to the result of a tournament. Again you need to check your facts! Even when matches are drawn, they will play overtime until a victor is decided! check your facts edit i may have been wrong about this...(?)


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## john2054 (May 29, 2015)

*The Match is a culmination of the two-year FIDE cycle and is played every two years between the incumbent Champion and the winner of the Candidates tournament. The Match is played over a maximum of twelve games and the winner of the match shall be the first player to score 6.5 points or more. If the scores are level after 12 games, 4 tie-break are played.  from Sochi 2014*


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## john2054 (May 29, 2015)

here are a list of the famous grandmaster chess draws in recent years: 
*Spassky versus Petrosian 
Reshevsky versus Portisch
Averbakh versus Fischer
Karpov versus Kasparov 1984
Keres versus Petrosian
Tal versus Botvinnik
Polugaevsky versus Tal
Kasparov versus Karpov 1986
Kasparov versus Smyslov

and these were match draws okay? Draw by agreement - Wikipedia the free encyclopedia

also here is a quote from the new york times: 'Grandmaster draws, the scourge of competition, are unfortunately alive and well.' http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/10/c...sist-but-so-do-fights-to-the-finish.html?_r=0





*


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## donald1 (May 29, 2015)

I dont know much about chess(i know how to play... im just not that good at it)  and know hardly of whats being said but grandmaster draw?? Ive never heard or this term, what is it


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## john2054 (May 29, 2015)

i thought it meant when the grandmasters drew a game, but apparently it means when they draw a match (a series of games).


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## elder999 (May 29, 2015)

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/10/c...s-persist-but-so-do-fights-to-the-finish.html



			
				THE NEW YORK TIMES said:
			
		

> A grandmaster draw refers to when players engage in a short, effectively uncontested game, often in the last round of a tournament, and then agree to a draw. Such draws usually occur among leaders of a tournament, and the purpose is to guarantee that each player gets a share of the prize money. For spectators and organizers, the draws are anticlimactic and disappointing.


 
The New York Times chess column (which, alas, is no more) was last edited by Dylan Loeb McClain, who had an FIDE rating of 2307.


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## john2054 (May 29, 2015)

Well done elder, you have mastered the copy and paste function for web addresses, there is clearly potential in this one yet!


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## elder999 (May 29, 2015)

john2054 said:


> Well done elder, you have mastered the copy and paste function for web addresses, there is clearly potential in this one yet!


 
I mean, we've both basically said the same thing, from the same sources: a "grandmaster draw" *is* a draw by agreement to end match play. The "draw death" I spoke of is something else entirely-the inability to resolve a game-*ever*-due to complete neutralization-something that hasn't even occurred with computer programs....while,yes,there are a lot of draws at higher levels of match play, matches still achieve resolution due to wins-there hasn't been any draw death*......yet.*


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## john2054 (May 29, 2015)

*also here is a quote from the new york times: 'Grandmaster draws, the scourge of competition, are unfortunately alive and well.'http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/10/c...sist-but-so-do-fights-to-the-finish.html?_r=0*
*
This was my link. then you copied and pasted the same link in your message. so like i said, well done? Have you ever considered applying to university lol*


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## elder999 (May 29, 2015)

john2054 said:


> *also here is a quote from the new york times: 'Grandmaster draws, the scourge of competition, are unfortunately alive and well.'http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/10/c...sist-but-so-do-fights-to-the-finish.html?_r=0
> 
> This was my link. then you copied and pasted the same link in your message. so like i said, well done? Have you ever considered applying to university lol*


 I also included a quote from the same article, explaining that a "grandmaster draw" is what I've been saying it was, rather than what you seemed to be saying it was?

Have you ever considered going back to kindergarten, or perhaps taking a course in reading comprehension? Is English your second language? Are you dyslexic? Maybe it's your eyesight? I wonder what the problem is......


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## Touch Of Death (May 29, 2015)

Some Brown Belt.


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## john2054 (May 29, 2015)

It's called plagiarism elder999, but then if you had a degree i guess you would have known that?


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## Touch Of Death (May 29, 2015)

john2054 said:


> It's called plagiarism elder999, but then if you had a degree i guess you would have known that?


I have always suspected that.


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## elder999 (May 29, 2015)

john2054 said:


> It's called plagiarism elder999, but then if you had a degree i guess you would have known that?


 
Are you saying you're a plagiarist? 

I've got a couple of degrees, btw......still don't understand what you're getting on about....of course, they're in engineering and physics....oh, and religious studies-I have a degree in religious studies? Perhaps you suffer from glossolalia?


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## elder999 (May 29, 2015)

Touch Of Death said:


> I have always suspected that.


Troublemaker! 



Then again, there are those who suspect I'm a stripper named "Topjob," instead of the fine figure of a man that I am....


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## john2054 (May 29, 2015)

a couple of degrees, really? and what university did you get them from, the school of hard knocks? Wait that actually is a college, damn


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## jks9199 (May 29, 2015)

Gentlemen... Cut the crap.  I'm tired, I'm grumpy... and I'll lock this thread very quickly if the personal attacks don't stop.

Am I coming across clearly enough?


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## elder999 (May 29, 2015)

john2054 said:


> It's called plagiarism elder999, but then if you had a degree i guess you would have known that?



Look, John, let's start over, okay? I mean, I have a reputation as one of the nastiest people here, and I just got out of the "penalty box," and don't really see much sense in both of  us being penalized for a simple misunderstanding....

In the first place, pasting a link and quoting the same article isn't called "plagiarism." It's called cross-posting; I was unaware, when I posted, that you had posted the same content earlier-but, since neither of us wrote it it can't be "plagiarism," anyway, since we both cited the same source.

I also-I have to point out (being one of the nastiest people here) that I quoted from the article directly, and it supports what I said about "grandmaster's draws."

I also have to point out-again-that what I originally posted was not about draws (which have occurred in grandmaster, international master and master level play since the beginning of the twentieth centure and earlier) but about the so-ca;;ed "draw death" of chess, which has by no means occurred yet, even between two supercomputers with the same programming.

Lastly, of course, I'd direct you to this post,  made ten years ago, and quote it below:



elder999 said:


> I
> *early on I earned a degree in religious studies; my father, grand father and great-grand father were all ministers, though they also practiced other trades. I managed to dodge that bullet, and wound up working in commercial nuclear power, earning degrees in mechanical and nuclear engineering, and advanced degrees in nuclear engineering and, more recently, my doctorate in applied physics. *Im a certified firefighter, HAZMAT technician, avid hunter, ultra-marathon runner and triathlete (though hardly competitive; Im just happy to finish.), fourth-generation gun nut, as well as a federally certified ordinance and munitions disposal technician.
> 
> 
> ...



Let's not have this conversation again, okay John? There are any number of people on this forum who know *for a fact* who I am, what I used to do, what I'm doing now, and what my education has been.......I have to add that, being _somewhere_ on the spectrum myself, and knowing a number of people who suffer from your disorder, I have a lot of respect for your putting yourself out on here. Be that as it may, I'm not the most patient of people when it comes to being called "wrong,"  especially when *I'm not.* We should just make nice............


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## john2054 (May 29, 2015)

okay nice one elder999. apology accepted


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