Remove two square pawn advance option

It seems like black and white would be much more equal if the starting two square pawn advance option was removed from the game.  If White wants to play the equivalent of e4, it takes him two moves to do so, and black can now play two development moves in exchange for white's control of the center as compensation.  Has this ever been considered before? 

What's wrong with how pawns move now? Why is slowing down the game better?

You'll have to answer those questions for anyone to even entertain the idea.

Actually, for hundreds of years, pawns could only move one square. Several hundred years ago they added the "2 squares on the first move" rule so the pawns could get into the game faster, since it was thought it took to long for the battle to start. If you want to get center control as black, just play 1...e5 or 1...c5 in response to e4.

@ Razdomillie

The problem is that White starts with an advantage due to the way pawns move now: "Statistical analysis shows that White scores between 52 and 56 percent at most levels of play, with White's margin increasing as the standard of play improves."

I realize there are things black can do, but that doesn't chane the fact that at very high levels of play white generally plays for a win, and black for a draw, simply because white starts out with a slight tempo advantage.  Allowing double pawn moves exacerbates this advantage.  I know it would slow the game down a bit, but it seems to me that game balance should take precedence over a slight speed improvement.

Dude, black can move pawns two squares also. Taking away that option for both sides would result in the same exact thing. White will always be slightly better than Black unless you give black some unfair advantage (a special move that white can't do, an extra piece, etc.) Someone has to go first. 

I 100% agree with this. I had the same idea and googled it before proclaiming to be the first. At least we have the same idea if I understood correctly:

The rules are unchanged, except black moves first, but is not allowed a pawn double step on this very first move. Another balancing rule I came up with was that the moves Nc6 and Nf6 are forbidden on the first move, as everyone would play the reversed Reti otherwise.

See it as a standard game, where black was allowed to move one pawn one step before the game starts, or move a knight to a6 or h6. All these moves are considered quite passive, losing a tempo while taking away squares or preparing a fianchetto, but they very slightly improve black's position, just enough to balance out the fact that white can immediately strike in the center with e4, d4, and c4.

As the chess rules are right now, black indeed spends a large portion of most games above a certain level trying to regain equality, before even thinking about attacking plans. My (and @grahambini's) idea might seem like it slows down the game, but it actually encourages asymmetric play right from the start, as white will most certainly make use of his right to double step.

You can also check the 10 resulting positions with an engine and see that they are never further from 0:0 than +-0.1, while original chess starts with a +0.3 advantage for white. Having the base game more equal does not mean more drawish, the resulting positions are highly interesting to look at, considering the opening repertoire most of us have ingrained at thiss point.

Cheers yall

I like the two square move option, I wouldn't change the rule.

Wow it's always funny when people find and revive decade-old threads!

But this would basically just make EVERY game be a KIA only with black attacking… engines don’t play exactly as humans do… they don’t play tactics… they never go for a risk or a checkmate that can be preventable even if it takes 3 brilliant quiet moves to do so that essentially only a grandmaster might find in a time control game.  Look at kings Indian defense games… black is typically down 1 or 2 pawns by the computer engine depending on the engine… even when black is doing just fine and white is in great danger.  Having a fianchetto’d bishop on the first turn (a common defense for black) or fianchettoing a tempo early would mean that there is no chance of a bind playin the accelerated dragon… and come on… no knights on the first turn?  I mean… sure, it’s still going to be chess and it’s not going to be predictable… it also simply erases opening theory that people have basically devoted how many hundreds of thousands of hours studying?  I have no problem with new versions of games or even new tournaments based on them.  But at this point it really seems like it would be a gut punch to the people who have put the most time into studying openings which I understand isn’t appealing to people deciding to start playing knowing they don’t have the advantage of memorized lines… but people will just study the new lines.  It could be a great “step variant” kind of like daily 960 only no randomizer.  You could make a new variant every decade so people can play with all the theory shaken up again.  

But for the majority of humans that have ever played chess the current rules have stayed constant.  Yes they changed in past centuries… but more people learned to play in the last than all those before combined.  It seems there should always be “classic” chess as an option.   

I don’t want to say “it’s perfect” and I’m not… just that it seems like it would be very unfair to change the game on such a fundamental level without acknowledging it’s a new variant of chess and not something as simple as deciding with a friend to allow a rake back or play without en passant.

Wow it's always funny when a user that commented on this forum decades ago commented on the forum decades later! 

@ScatteredWealth Yup well it came up in my alerts. I stand by what I said back then

The reasoning for not changing the rule back is the same as it was for changing it in the first place.