as statistics say, in more than 50% of the total games, WHITE has been getting an upper edge (in terms of WHITE-wins). a lesser percentage is shared between BLACK-WINS & mere DRAWS. but why? is it that because of the 1st move is for white? or else?...

what do you think?

Its' the first move advantage.  Really, what else could it possibly be?

but why the first move is so crucial?

If you go first you have the advantage.

It could be psychology. Because of the widespread belief of the first move advantage, many players play to win with white and a draw with black is an acceptable result. This might decrease the black win percentage and increase the draw rate compared to a situation where players played to win regardless of color.

So it may be a self a fulfilling prophecy then.  That's an interesting thought.

A little of both  sounds good to me. 

I have a recollection of Kasparov winning with black a lot in Super tournaments in the late 90s (Linares, Corus). Sounds like the best of the best play to win.

At the top levels where GMs can draw with white if that's all they want, it may be acceptable to take draws with black, but at any other level it always sounds like an excuse. I hear guys rated under 1800 USCF saying they're going to play for a draw because they have black and it just sounds silly.

I also remember watching Kramnik outplay someone in an ending from an equal position a few years ago when he was really at his peak. In this game he happened to have black, which is really irrelevant to outplaying someone in an ending. Yet, there were comments from the peanut gallery about how amazing it was he won as black.

To my mind, the value of the first move advantage, while real, is over estimated in general.

No kidding. This is the main issue. Just because this happens in grandmaster play, does not make it applicable at normal level. Yet often, you can see those saying that draws as black are their intended results.

Which seems to lean towards the idea you mentioned in post #6, Loomis, that the reason players win more with white is because they expect to win more with white, regardless of their skill level.

I'd have thought there is no doubt that white has an advantage at the start. Reb, I may have misunderstood, but black should play for equality first before playing for a win, would you agree with that statement?

Take a look at this: "black is ok" and "black is still ok" Andras Andorjan

Goo reading!

 Well, it does give white control of the tempo/initiative of the game(black is reacting to the choices of white). If black doesn't make the best moves he can to steal the initiative AND white works hard to keep it, white will dictate when and how the opening exchanges take place and can be the differnence in winning or loosing a game at upper levels. It makes logical sense to me that overall, that among MOST players, white would have an (ever so slight) advantage because of this.

You probably have a fair percentage of players playing black who are especially good at stealing the iniative away from white either because of especially agressive defense or they have just studied lots of openings for black and have figured out the best lines for thier particular style of play. Most casual players are not that familiar with a lot of the opening variations though, so yeah, it seems like this would cause white to have a slight "natural" advantage.

Perhaps I am way off here, but it seems to make sense to me.

If you don't know much openings (like me) playing white is easyer than playing black. 

With white you can survive with allmost anny first moves, but that's not the case with black!

i agree..

that is my question.. why is it easier to play with white? but, many opening moves are not quite good for white..

that is my question.. why is it easier to play with white? but, many opening moves are not quite good for white..

I think it all boils down to options, white has more options than black.

If white playes a slow opening, it's easyer to survive to the middlegame with black.

It's about initiative, I think. The Ruy is always a good example

1e4 e5 [edit e5, not e5, doh!]

Nf3 Attacks a pawn Nc6 Defends the pawn

Bb5 Attacks the piece that defends the pawn....

White is pro-active, Black is reactive. If White is innaccurate, black can equalise or even gain the initative. The better the players, the less ikely this is likely to happen.