'Favors Black, you think? Then perhaps you will be willing to offer me
substantial odds as we play a game for some enormous stake of money,
perhaps a penny on a1 doubled on each successive square?'
I had almost put the above statement into the story of getting a regular
chessplayer to play Chigorin Chess, somewhere after the part where 'variant
rhymes with deviant and that starts with d and rhymes with t and stands for
trouble.', and way after the part where the regular chessplayer says with a
sneer is that some kind of fairy chess.... (I'm not suggesting that
you're
the offensive non-PC 'regular chessplayer'; the misinformation
about relative values of N and B is part of general unwisdom, that's
all.)
Read any monograph on the Chigorin Defense. You'll find that many
players now believe the N to be superior in the early stages of the game,
which agrees with my findings on the theory of chess values so I think
it must be right.
Given the advantage of the first move to go with the advantage of fast
development, the *white* side in Chigorin Chess probably has a large
advantage. In order to Castle K-side, Black needs to move two Pawns and two
Bishops; and one of those P moves looks suspiciously like a weakening
move.
White can go 5.O-O at the earliest, but Black can choose to go 3...O-O;
think about it!
And, of course, this is the whole point of Chigorin Chess! You can get a
'regular chessplayer' to play, because he will want to prove that the
Bishops are so much superior...