06 January 2009

Advantage in Chess960 Start Positions Revisited

Returning to the botched table in Theoretical Advantage in Chess960 Start Positions, here's a correction. For the given chess960 start positions (SP), the following table shows the number of games played (#), the percentage of games won by White, won by Black, and drawn (%W, %B, %D), and the overall score for White (%S).


SPFEN#%W%B%D%S
Highest Overall Score White
024NBQNBRKR4261.99.528.676.2
376NBRKBRNQ2669.319.311.575.0
868QBBRKRNN4062.615.022.573.8
266NRKNBBQR3066.723.310.071.7
729RKNBBQNR2864.325.110.769.6
Highest Overall Score Black
537RNKBBQNR2817.853.628.632.1
396QBRNNKBR3622.255.622.233.3
764RBKNNRBQ3023.453.423.335.0
201QNRBBKNR4420.550.029.535.2
082BNNRKBRQ3426.555.917.635.3
Traditional Start
518RNBQKBNR2828.650.021.439.3
Traditional Start (K&Q switched)
534RNBKQBNR2227.340.931.843.2

Since the previous table showed (incorrectly) the highest overall score for White and for Black, I've used the same selection here. With some overlap to be expected between the two versions of the table, three SPs are the same for White and two are the same for Black. The previous table showed highest and lowest % draws correctly, so I haven't repeated the data here.

The corrected calculations for the traditional start position (SP518) raise a red flag over the validity of the data. They show White's overall score to be slightly more than 39%, when modern master experience says it should be around 55%. This indicates that the margin of error for the other SPs is significant.

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