White has to make his first move blind, he doesn't know what black will do on his first move. Black doesn't have that problem, he'll already know what whites first move will be.
Or hers, of course. :-)
Information Theory?
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It's not like there are two robots or computers going at it. Remember many if not most games are won by "blunders" or the 'oops, I didn't see that" kind of thing.
May 11, 2013
0
#4
StrengthInPawns wrote:
I don't think it's unimportant.
If chess were played perfectly or even near-perfectly then maybe second-to-move would not carry this advantage, since black would start, before white moved, with the understanding that white was going to play x, where x is an element of the set of optimal moves (that all lead to white's best forced score).
As it is, chess is played on a very imperfect level and what white does determines a lot about how the game will unfold. At high levels, d4 vs. e4 is a huge difference and black gets to respond based on this information.
As it is, chess is a win for black. But not because of this information advantage. It just happens to be a forced win for black when played perfectly.
Are you saying Chess is a win for black if played perfectly?
SlimReaper99 wrote:
White has to make his first move blind, he doesn't know what black will do on his first move. Black doesn't have that problem, he'll already know what whites first move will be.
Or hers, of course. :-)
But on White's second move, he knows both his first move and Black's first move. So does he actually have an information advantage? Not in my view. I still think that both players have the same amount of information when they make a move.
Casual_Joe wrote:
SlimReaper99 wrote:
White has to make his first move blind, he doesn't know what black will do on his first move. Black doesn't have that problem, he'll already know what whites first move will be.
Or hers, of course. :-)
But on White's second move, he knows both his first move and Black's first move. So does he actually have an information advantage? Not in my view. I still think that both players have the same amount of information when they make a move.
But it's whites second move, his information is one move behind blacks. It would only make a difference in high level games, I would think, but the information advantage is there.
orangeishblue wrote:
sounds like sophistry. Certainly unimportant.
Yep. Makes not an iota of sense to me.
The 2nd player on the tennis court will have the advantage of knowing what the serve will be like (the first player will only have an idea of what they are trying to accomplish).
However that doesn't slow the serve down, or change it's location, etc.
Yes black technically has one extra move's worth of information, but it is not nearly enough to sway the fact that white has an advantage because he/she has the first move.
It's an interesting notion though, especially at the amateur level. I've actually met known and played against some people who actually prefer playing the black pieces (literally, i've heared "{explitave} I got paired with the white pieces again!" before).
But then while Black is deliberating over his move, White could be said to have the "information advantage." lol Definitely seems like goobledegook to me...although I can easily envision Watson getting snared in its imponderable tentacles (the guy does have an unfortunate tendency to babble on and overcomplicate things a bit--the only knock I had against his Secrets of Modern Chess Strategy books).
There are certain games where going second is an advantage -- typically where every first move has an effective counter. I don't think that's the case with chess. It is widely accepted that white has a small but measurable advantage. This is also supported by the database statistics, which show that white wins slightly more often than black.
Ok, let me try again. 
Whites move 1: he has no info about blacks plans and has to make a move. Blacks move 1: He know's whites first move, thus has 1 move worth of extra info than white did on his first move. White's second move: He only knows 1 move black played, no extra info over black, and he has to play his second move. Black's second move: Now blacks playing his second move, but he knows 2 moves of whites, 1 more than white did on his second move. Rinse and repeat.
I agree, it's not an advantage that makes up for going second, but the question wasn't whether it was an advantage, the question was does black have more information, and it's always the case that he does.
It's not a question of opinion, it's just a fact.
taken all master games in total, does not white win a higher percetage. if so then there is an advantage to playing white. in chess each move is an opportunity to affect the board information. white has one more opp than black. perhas the advantage is not that of informaion to read but the extra move to change the current information.
history shows humons have no memory. often my play shows that too. two computers playing what a bore but imperfect humons ah now that is fun. from a theoretical stand point anyway.
lol...Well, it still seems like a bit of asinine double talk to me. It seems a bit like the feeling I get when I'm losing and can stop feeling the pressure on myself to win and just try to bail myself out (which can indeed lead to a more objective frame of mind, especially now that my opponent has that pressure on himself). Or even the feeling in a constricted position when you are short of time and have nothing to lose and can therefore blitz off the same move sequence over and over again. Still, it does sound though like you are attempting to make an "advantage" out of what is inherently after all a disadvantage: being a move behind.
Kinda funny that I know what you're talking about there, Andy (because it's about chess). There are times when I'm sure I will resign, but, play quite freely and will occasionally end up in a better spot.
You can know something, if you cannot defend against it...Maybe you know white's first move, but at the same time, that move restricts your possibilities.
Clearly there are games where moving last can give you an informational advantage (baseball and poker come to mind); but chess ain't one of em.
I was just doing some more research, because I'ma geek and this is interesting, but I found this post on chess.com from 4 years ago that I think explains it quite well. Link to the thread is at the bottom.
"White definitely has the advantage of direction, but Black has the advantage of information. The question should be whether White has a net advantage over Black, and the answer is: it depends.
When White acts first, it has a total of 20 possible unconstrained moves to make, while Black inherently has fewer. If White plays d4, Black would be foolish to play e5. However, Black now has gained some valuable information on White's strategy that it can exploit.
Supporters of White point to statistics that show that White wins more often than Black (by a very slim margin), and reason that this proves White's supremacy over Black. Of course, all this really suggests is, that for the time being at least, human chess players are better at exploiting the directional advantages of White over the informational advantages of Black.
In other words, the playing field is level, but the players are not identical. Black cannot play the same game as White, if he did he would always be one move behind, all the way to checkmate. Black must play differently than White, he must exploit the information from White's last move to anticipate his next move and counter it - there is no other way for Black to win. White must attempt to conceal his actions, be careful not to telegraph his intentions to Black and attempt to maximize his first mover advantage.
White does not have an absolute advantage over Black because Black always has the opportunity to counter. White would have an absolute advantage over Black if Chess was a game of "sudden death" - as soon as one opponent checks the other's King, the game ends. But Black always has the opportunity to make a move after he's checked (even when he's checkmated, he has the opportunity to move, he simply doesn't have any viable options).
So why is the answer "it depends"? Because as a Chess player, you will be more successful with one side or the other, depending on whether you are better at exploiting directional or informational advantages. If you find that you play better as Black, you may want to try your hand at No Limit Texas Hold'em, a game of strategy where informational advantage is King!
Regards,
Darknyte"
http://www.chess.com/survey/does-white-have-an-advantage-with-the-first-move
StrengthInPawns wrote:
I say "his" because I said "top human" not "human"
Women aren't nearly as mentally capable of the complexities of chess. They are better at other things.
OMG. Now I know you're a troll.
@baddogno see if profile
"there is an unspoken rule that if you are above average, then you must pretend you are average or people will hate you.i choose not to follow this rule.i am intellectually superior to everyone i've ever met or ever will meet."
He is an arrogant kid who think that he is superior to any other people. He isn't a troll, only an idiot arrogant like Fischer
I often hear people say that Black has an information advantage in chess (eg. IM Watson) because he gets to see White's first move before making his move, therefore he always has "one extra move's worth of information" than White.
But this doesn't make sense to me. Both players always know the exact position of all the pieces before making their move -- so they both have the same amount of information. Any thoughts?