Adorjan's books analyse white/black wins as much from a psychological basis,
as anything else - that we have an expectation [or even obligation] to do
better with white and different expectation with black [getting a draw is
good!]. But there is no objective basis in chess for either attitude!

Indeed, GM Adorjan contradicts himself repeatedly in his
labored attempts to suggest that White has no advantage
whatever, followed by his voluntary "admission" that White
can magically induce a draw, followed by reversion back to
his first position, etc. In sum, he *sometimes* admits White
an advantage, but always insists it is not sufficient to win.

Adorjan even says that we are conditioned to always prosecute our chess from
white's point of view - and that all chess diagrams are presented as if you
were sitting behind the white pieces, eg. and this reinforces the conscious
perception of 'white to move and win.'

To a certain extent, perhaps. But I have replayed many of
the games of Paul Morphy -- from the book's White perspective --
where I kept getting the sh*t kicked out of my White pieces!
I think his opponents had a very different idea.

Players overconcentrate their study with what to do with the white pieces,

I see no evidence of this; if anything, players tend to study
harder for the Back side, because they *think* it is far more
difficult to play. Many, many chess books are written as a
repertoire for Black, and such books are best sellers.

At this point, it would be wise to note that many, many of
GM Adorjan's numerous contentions are left wholly
unsupported in the article. Even his analogies are inept;
either he or else his translator confounded football for
another sport, etc. The whole piece was put together rather
carelessly, especially with regard to the whole White/Black
draw idea.


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

One should not overlook the initiative in attempting to
explain the imbalance in terms of results. An over-
simplification would be: 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 (threatens Nxe5)
.... Nc6 (meets the threat), etc.

--------

IMO, the lower level play tends toward a smaller advantage
to the player of the White pieces, while the high-level results,
and perhaps results in high-level correspondence play, would
tend more toward the 60/40ish split. The reason is that at the
low levels, many games are decided almost at random, and in
addition, the initiative -- or rather having the move -- is just as
much a chance to blunder as it is to forward any particular
strategy. Likewise, the top players are the very ones who
will see a draw as Black being a sort of "turnover" of the ball,
not unlike a fumble in football.

I'm not certain exactly when that article was written, but at
least as far back as Paul Morphy there were players who did
*not* play for a draw as Black. More recently, I could cite GM
Tal, GM Fischer, GM Kasparov (except his matches with his
arch-nemesis), etc. In fact, the tendency to readily accept a
draw as Black seems connected to the idea that White has
more margin for error, for attempting to make something out
of the near-nothing or not-quite-something he gets in moving
first. Black, it is believed, must walk a narrower path or else
risk losing. Players prefer to "spend" their risk-tokens at
those times where they believe they can survive a small error
and yet still draw.

-- help bot