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

Joe Joyce wrote on Sun, Aug 12, 2012 06:27 PM UTC:

Grin, we can have a theoretical argument or we can play one of the
variants. Or one can use Game Courier to look at a game that shows a little
of the behavior these games can display:
h t t p : / /
play.chessvariants.org/pbm/play.php?game=Chieftain+Chess&log=sissa-joejoyce-2008-346-851

I would be happy to play a public game against anyone who wishes, to
illustrate what I mean. I am in a bit of a quandry; if someone says "I
don't believe in X", but won't look at where I claim X occurs, how am I
to demonstrate X? 

Grin, I could try to argue from authority and say: "How likely is it that
I, an editor at CV.org, would make such a bold statement without very good
reason to believe I'm right?" but I have no authority and no more
knowledge about the theory of games than I have authority. :) I'm a
tinkerer with a bump of curiosity and a little persistence. And sometimes I
can see the obvious when it's right in front of me.

I did not design Chief with anything like first turn advantage in mind. [In
fact, a good case can be made that Chief designed itself one midday.] But
as I played the game, I saw that any reasonably competent player could take
black and pass the first turn without detriment - *any* reasonably
competent player. To me, that screams any first turn advantage is
effectively gone, dropped below "noise level". What other possible
explanations can there be? My question about this is if Chief results can
actually be used for looking at FIDE. Are the multi-move and leader
features of the game enough to preclude us from using Chief to illuminate
anything about standard western chess?