white always going first...

Originally posted by gambit3
I would guess that a defensive and or counter attacking player might play better with Black. Karpov, Petrosian, Schlechter and Korchnoi are such players. I have not heard of any player stating that he would prefer to play Black.

I haven't done any research, but I would bet that no GM-strength player in chess history has ever had a better record with Black than with White.

Originally posted by Fat Lady
I think Black sometimes went first until at least Morphy's time, but games in which this happened are now rewritten so that the player who moved first is considered to be White.

That is interesting because Black's King and Queen would be the opposite way round. For the games to be rewritten, the coordinates would have to be flipped over ("a" file becomes "h", "b" becomes "g" etc).

EDIT: Oops, worked it out wrong. Files would be flipped anyway because it is the opposite way round. The ranks would have to be switched (1 becomes 8, 2 becomes 7 etc).

Originally posted by lausey
That is interesting because Black's King and Queen would be the opposite way round. For the games to be rewritten, the coordinates would have to be flipped over ("a" file becomes "h", "b" becomes "g" etc).

EDIT: Oops, worked it out wrong. Files would be flipped anyway because it is the opposite way round. The ranks would have to be switched (1 becomes 8, 2 becomes 7 etc).

Of course in those days all games were recorded using descriptive notation anyway.