Gary Gifford wrote on Sun, Jun 4, 2006 08:02 PM UTC:
Grandmaster Adorjan wrote 2 books on the subject of black's supposed
disadvantage due to the first move initiative. The first, 'Black is
Okay!' (published by Batsford in 1988), it is a book dedicated to proving
that Black has his full share of chances. The second, recently published,
'Black is Still Okay' has the same objective and offers more proof. I
have a copy of the first book and must agree with the grandmaster.
Adorjan's premise, is that “The tale of White's advantage is a delusion,
belief in it is based on mass psychosis.”
And I believe the current point scoring system is fine. If your opponent
is 2200 rated and you are 1500 rated... I believe that you having white is
not going to be of much help.
A new scoring system would be grossly unfair as well. For there would be
rounds inwhich players advance and neeed that extra point fraction offered
by a black win (under the new system). Yet they are assigned the white
pieces worth less if they win. Terrible.
Also, there is the ratings factor... now a win against Player X with Black
should get me more rating points than would a win against Player X with me
as White. In effect, we'd need a black piece rating and a white piece
rating. Again, Terrible in my opinion.
To offset the small white initiative, change not the point system, instead
increase your own playing strength.
