White vs Black

Does anybody else feel they are stronger with the black pieces vs white?

My late father certainly did. He was a boon to our chess team because he'd always lobby for a board on which he could play with the Black pieces. His repertoire hinged on the Cambridge Springs against the Queen's Gambit and the Wilkes-Barre against the Giuoco Piano (with the Ruy Lopez he was a Cordel's Defence guy). I didn't follow his example but am quite neutral.

I think a lot has to do with chess maturity.

In the late 90s, when I first played in tournaments, my first 1000 games or so, I preferred Black. I made the same mistake as most other amateurs, and memorized openings. It is easier to memorize an opening than it is random lines of different openings. That said, memorizing openings is the dumbest thing a chess player can do. By about 2003 or so, my tune changed from memorizing openings to UNDERSTANDING them. Once that started happening, my tune changed. Not like the flip of a switch, but gradually.

Now, 22 years later, if I could choose color, other than maybe once in a while just for "change of pace", I would "choose" White probably 19 games out of every 20 at minimum. Maybe more often than that. That is why I hate situations like I had last weekend. Sure, many times in a 5 round event you get 3 Black's and 2 Whites or in a 3 round event you get 2 Black's and 1 White. But this past weekend was a 6 round event, and most of the time, you will get each color 3 times. Not me last weekend. I had BWBWBB - 4 Blacks and 2 Whites. Now I missed fairly easy wins in 2 of the 4 games as Black and wound up drawing one and losing one. But the other 2 results were legit. Got legitimately beat round 3 and had to groveling for a draw round 6.

My results were LWLWDD, Which should have been WWLWWD.

Notice the two games I won were the 2 with White.

I have thus far played 11 tournament games in 2025 with not such a great start. Look at the difference in numbers between White and Black in over the board games for me.

White - 3 wins, 1 loss, no draws

Black - No wins, 4 losses, 3 draws

Even if I win the 2 games I should have won, that would be +2-3=2, or a 42% score vs 75% with White. I will not maintain 75% for the year, but do tend to score about 60 to 65% with White and about 46 to 49 percent with Black for an overall score of about 55 percent each year, which is often because I frequently play down about 50 to 100 points at the club, and local tournaments are often 2 games against lower rated and 1 against higher rated players.

I used to I feel that way. Almost all the lines I play as black have positive winrates for black, I never really feel at a disadvantage. I think it's mainly due to the predictability of white players - they almost always play either 1. e4 or 1. d4, effectively punting the opportunity for taking control of the game back in blacks direction. But these days I play 1. Nc3, it takes hold of the game immediately. There are other interesting moves white could play - 1. b3, 1. b4, 1. c3, 1. c4, 1. Nf3, 1. f4... white players need to get more creative.

This past week was more balanced; it took a good 30 games for me to get a feel for blitz.

Funny enough, it’s wasn’t about openings but finding middle game plans and end games that saved me.

I've studied the Black side of my defenses a lot more than I've studied my White openings, so I can relate to anyone who prefers Black ...

I also enjoy the initial uncertainty of playing Black - as its White who first dictates which direction the game is going to go. The brief mystery of it makes things interesting ...