Would it make any difference if Black moved first?

Would the game of chess be any different if Black had the first move? (other than throwing out established opening theory).

No difference.

It also wouldn't change theory (positions are just mirrored across the vertical axis).

Hundreds of years ago, games were played alternating which color goes first.

I started a thread a year ago or so about bringing this style of play back into current play.  Flip a coin to see who goes first, then another for what color. Then it's game on!

Needless to say it didn't take off...

not if you placed the black king on a dark square!

Theoretically it makes no difference, so long as the board is still set up the same way. But because of the mirror image, it probably interferes with many people's pattern recognition abilities.

Try to work out what the following opening is. It might be harder for some than others.

French Defense, Advance Variation.

Back in the 1800's when they did that black was considered the lucky color. 

An amusing one. Guess the opening.

QGD. Semi-Slav

This one was tricky, but I see it's the Caro-Kann.

Back in the 1800's, white wasn't given the first move. many of the classic games from those days, were actually played with the colors reversed. Like the famous Anderson-Kieseritzky Immortal game, Anderson actually played the black pieces.

Problem was, nobody wanted to play the white pieces. They were starting to be considered unlucky. So white was later given the advantage of the first move.

Black would win more often.

With certain opning moves you can (effectively) have Black playing as though he/she were White (provided one has  willing opponent.

For example:

1. e3 e5 2. e4

It can be interesting for exploring certain openings where it's all Book Moves up to the point where you're a pawn and a half down...

The second one is the Lolli Attack, which follows from the Fried Liver Attack

Italian Game.

Remember that in all of these positions, black moved first. That's why they look so weird. The first looks a bit like a QGD, but was in fact correctly identified as the French Advanced. The second looks like a Colle system, but is in fact the "Qc2" anti-Meran line of the semi-Slav.

I think you're still assuming that white goes first and black second. If the board is set up the same way but black moves first, the first board is theoretically identical to the French Advanced.

Try it with a real chessboard and see for yourself (or use a trick to allow black to move first on a software chessboard). 

That's an assumption you made. You can see no one else here has mentioned that we should 'flip the board'.

Here is the actual sequence of moves, using a trick to allow black to move first.

Fixed, but otherwise, that's pretty much it.

EDIT: ah, maybe not. Let me amend that to "position is just rotated 180°".

XPLAYER, they're not talking about if you reversed the colors of the pieces. Notice you've set up the black pieces as if they're white.

They're talking about a standard setup, but letting black move first instead of white. In such a case, the player to move first would have their king on the left.