Taylor,

Thanks, I was keeping an eye peeled for the results of your research.

This one example, though, involving only drawing patterns by world
champions, doesn't shed much light on the general question of alleged
statistical support for some thesis to the effect that Black is OK.
Perhaps the point is that certain players, such as Steinitz and
Alekhine, played for a win with Black more frequently than others?

I have Adorjan's original Black is OK book and I enjoyed reading it.
So I'm curious about what he has to say in this one, though I buy few
chess books these days.

I did read the interview at Chessville, which turned out to be
interesting since Adorjan did most of the talking.

Larry T.



On Mar 20, 10:12 am, "Taylor Kingston"
wrote:
As regular readers of this group are aware, there has been some
discussion here of a post last month by Phil Innes, that claimed to
present statistics on draw rates in world championship games. As I
pointed out then, these statistics were wildly inaccurate.
The source Innes cited for these stats was "Black Is Still
OK" (Batsford, 2004) by GM Andras Adorjan. Curious as to whether the
bogus stats were the fault of Adorjan, or of Innes, I bought the book
to settle this mystery.
For readers wanting a quick summary, it's simple: Innes
misrepresented the meaning of Adorjan's statistics. Those interested
in a fuller explanation may read on:

Here is what Innes posted on 10 February 2007:

Historically I have much data on WDL stats - in W Ch games, the
highest draw rates are archieved by Smyslov at 57.9% draws with black
and 50.3% draws with white - who is exceeded by Petrosian with 61.5%
draws with black and 49.0% draws with white.
The LOWEST draw rate appears to be Steinitz, with 21.7% draws with
black and 17.9% draws with white.
Of popular players:

Alekhine: 30.5% draws black, 24.3% draws white
Fischer: 36.9% draws black, 24.8% draws white
Kasparov, 47.3% draws black, 30.8% draws white

stats on World Champions is from Adorjan's
Black is still OK!/Batsford

*** end Innes excerpt ***

That I am quoting Innes correctly can be verified by reading his
original post he

http://tinyurl.com/2lyx5b

As I pointed in that thread the next day, the statistics Innes gave
were quite wrong. In world championship play, the correct draw
percentages a

Smyslov: 49.4% (not 57.9% w/ Black and 50.3% w/ White)
Petrosian: 65.2% (not 61.5% B, 49.0% W)
Steinitz: 27.6% (not 21.7% B, 17.9% W)
Alekhine: 52.14% (not 30.5% B, 24.3% W)
Fischer: 52.4% (not 36.9% B, 24.8% W)
Kasparov: 72.6% (not 47.3% B, 30.8% W)

(Seehttp://tinyurl.com/yqpve7for more details.)

Some of the differences are minor, but some are huge, e.g. Alekhine,
Fischer, and especially Kasparov. The gross error with Fischer is
particularly hard to understand - he played only one world title
match, the most famous match in chess history, on which over 400 books
have been written. One would think Innes would have at least one of
them to tell him the correct score (+7 -3 =11). In any case, not a
single player's statistics are correct.

Thus arose the question of how Innes got his bogus stats. There
seemed to be four main possibilities:

1. They were a complete fabrication by Innes (Phil does a lot of
this).
2. Innes miscopied Adorjan's figures (Phil is not a good typist).
3. Innes copied correctly, but Adorjan's figures are wrong.
4. Adorjan's figures are right, but they refer to something other
than world championship results; therefore Innes was wrong to say they
were draw rates "in W Ch games."

So, in an effort to solve this compelling mystery, I acquired the
book Innes named as his source, GM Andras Adorjan's "Black Is Still
OK." Here are my findings:

Of my four conjectures, #4 came closest. Adorjan _does_ present a
chart (in print almost unreadably tiny) showing the number of wins by
White, wins by Black, and draws, in all world title matches from 1886
to 1990, the total of which Adorjan gives as 755 games. (Adorjan's
figures are not quite accurate, but we'll disregard that for now.)
However, the stats Innes presented refer NOT to that chart, but to a
set of 23,362 games derived from an unnamed database. Adorjan says the
23,262 are ALL games on this database that involved World Champions
(plus Bronstein, a non-champion whom Adorjan includes for some
unstated reason).
Therefore Innes has misrepresented the meaning of Adorjan's figures.
This is not surprising; our Phil frequently misreads, or
misunderstands what he reads. This is entirely Innes' fault, because
Adorjan made quite clear what he was describing. The heading of that
section of the book (pages155-156) says in bold

"The World Champions' total(?) games"

followed immediately by the statement

"The number of the World Champion's total games in our database from
Steinitz to Kasparov is 23,362, of which 1,148 were played in
matches."

No doubt our Phil will claim it was obvious that this was what he
meant all along, but regulars of this newsgroup know better. In any
event, I am happy to have provided this clarification for rgcm readers.