"Ron" wrote in message
...
In article dyDCh.3716$2w.1172@trndny09,
"Chess One" wrote:

Players overconcentrate their study with what to do with the white
pieces,
and this imbalanced study coupled with received expectations of what to
do
with white or black, creates a self-fulfilling result.

I disagree. I think people spend more time studying what to do with the
black pieces - because it's harder, because if they don't know what
they're doing with black, they can lose quickly.

While that is sensible, it appears not to be universal practice.

I've certainly spent more time studying specific openings with the black
pieces.

Me too.

But after 1.e4, which side actually choses the opening? If the Sicilian
is
played, which side choses the sub-variation, to play the Taimanov or
Pelikan
vars?

But here, of course, you're skipped over a lot of choices. I could have
been just as facetious by saying, "who chooses to play the Smith-Morra,
or the Grand Prix attack?"

Sure - but against what? A GrandPrix can be played against a Sicilian
[black's choice] but not against a French [black's choice] or a Russian
opening [black's choice]. The simple point is that black is chosing the
opening, then subsequently the players collude on the variation. It is not
even entirely dependent on white's first move, since the English Defence [+
varieties of hedgehog] can be played against almost anything, and with
hardly any difference how you order your moves, e6, b6, Bb7...

Can the statement, "black always wins" be refuted, or can it be shown to
be
unprovable?

But not all false statements are easily refuted.

! Since we have a specific, is there a specific answer, or do we hide in
generalities - what is the sense of 'easily' in your comment?

The questions I pose are of different natures, and of interest to
logicians - the trouble with chess is that both questions seem to be
unknown!

There is a great deal of evidence which strongly suggests that the
opening position is better for white. Namely, the consistently higher
winning percentage of white, combined with the fact that developed
theory - a huge amount of practical knowledge - shows a fairly
persistent white advantage.

But you eliminated the likely cause of this from my post [which are really
the comments of Adorjan] - which are expectations from both white and black
player. Do you understand this pyschology, which has sociological outcome:-

In USA 1860 all doctors were male, in 2000 55% of graduating MDs were
female. A sociology! And another one based on a negative expectation, 'that
women would not like the sight of blood'.

So for the statement "black always wins" to be true, there'd have to be
some huge, paradigm-shifting understanding of the game of chess.

I think if you look at my question, it does /not/ ask for proof of black
always wins, but asks if there is a /refutation/ of black always wins. You
comment on the current sociology of chess, which I suppose is as valid a
comment as if it were 1860 in medicine. So when a huge paradigm-shift does
occur, what then is the answer after the shift has occured?

The fact that we can't prove it isn't so doesn't mean it's a reasonable
proposition.

I haven't asked for whatever 'reasonable proposition' means in your
sentence. (What does it mean, BTW?) I asked two specifics:

a) Can the statement, "black always wins" be refuted?
or
b) can it be shown to be unprovable?

I know they are hard questions, and its okay to say 'dunno', but changing
the question is avoidance. Both questions reveal something about the
state-of-the-art in 'solving chess' as well as in complex games theory.

Phil Innes


-Ron