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First move advantage in Western Chess - why does it exist?[Subject Thread] [Add Response]

Joe Joyce wrote on Thu, Aug 9, 2012 02:49 AM UTC:

Hey, Jeremy. It was designing chess variants that made me realize that the
primary purpose for pawns, in the set-up, is to hem in their own side so
the game doesn't degenerate into a catastrophic shoot-out from the first
move. [Grin, see Texas Two-Step.] Thanks for the Betza reference.

Derek, that white wins is a minority view, and, often as I am in the
minority, I do not join you in this one. However, I do note it is unproven,
so at this point, neither of us is demonstrably right or wrong. I also
think there are very high value moves throughout the game, for both sides,
so unless your argument about move order vs value is statistically borne
out through all possible games, I'd disagree on that. I would note here
there are generally many more bad moves than good in any given turn. But I
understand the concept behind what you are saying, and how 2 follows from
1.

Let me reprise my argument. Find/design a game that does not have the
quality you are examining, but is similar enough otherwise to allow valid
comparison. In other words, argue from contrafactuals. What was changed to
create the 2nd game? I used Chieftain Chess as the 2nd game, because I
understand it well enough to do a decent initial analysis, and I can
demonstrate the game almost certainly cannot have a first turn advantage.
As a verbal demo, I can say any reasonably highly-skilled player can play
black and pass the first turn, giving white 2 first moves, without
detriment to black's game position. 

Chief did 3 basic things that eliminated first turn advantage for white, as
far as I can see. It reduced all movement ranges to no more than 1, 2, or 3
squares/turn, depending on piece. It lengthened the board, putting more
space between the [bulk of] the armies. And it allowed backward movement,
actually 360 degree movement, to all pieces, including the pawn
equivalents. It's also multi-move, allowing 4 pieces/turn to move for each
player, and movement is restricted by the requirement for the moving piece
to be reasonably near one of four leader pieces per side. However, I do not
see how these last two differences with FIDE have any real bearing on the
question.