tldr: On average, playing white gives amateurs a 0.035 bump in points scored (where a draw is 0.5).
We often hear GMs discuss the advantage of playing as white, but I wasn't sure if that applied to amateurs as well. To assess this, I downloaded all games played on Lichess in April 2017. When only considering Rated Classical games, this gives us a sample of about 2.8 million games.
Question 1: Does white have an edge in amateur games?
Answer 1: Yes.
Black wins (White loses) 46.0% of its games
Black draws (White draws) 4.3% of its games
Black loses (White wins) 49.7% of its games
On average, being white increases by .035 the number of "points" scored (with a draw equal to 0.5). I obtained that estimate using a simple regression model.
Question 2: Does the "white advantage" increase with ratings? Do better players draw more benefit from opening as white?
Answer 2: I ran a bunch of regression models to test this, but didn't find a result. So no, it doesn't look like the white edge increases with ratings.
We often hear GMs discuss the advantage of playing as white, but I wasn't sure if that applied to amateurs as well. To assess this, I downloaded all games played on Lichess in April 2017. When only considering Rated Classical games, this gives us a sample of about 2.8 million games.
Question 1: Does white have an edge in amateur games?
Answer 1: Yes.
Black wins (White loses) 46.0% of its games
Black draws (White draws) 4.3% of its games
Black loses (White wins) 49.7% of its games
On average, being white increases by .035 the number of "points" scored (with a draw equal to 0.5). I obtained that estimate using a simple regression model.
Question 2: Does the "white advantage" increase with ratings? Do better players draw more benefit from opening as white?
Answer 2: I ran a bunch of regression models to test this, but didn't find a result. So no, it doesn't look like the white edge increases with ratings.