First-move advantage in chess draw given best play prevails. Even if it cannot be proved, this assumption is considered "safe" by Rowson and "logical" by Adorján. Watson agrees that "the proper result of a perfectly played chess game ... is a draw. ... Of course, I can't prove this, but I doubt that you can find a single strong player who would disagree. ... I remember Kasparov, after a last-round draw, explaining to the waiting reporters: 'Well, chess is a draw. World Champion Bobby Fischer thought that "it's almost definite that the game is a draw theoretically". Similarly, British grandmaster Nigel Short wrote that
White and Black in chess The checkering of the squares was a European innovation, introduced in the thirteenth century. The convention of White having the first move is much more recent than that. François-André Danican Philidor in the original (1749) edition of his famous treatise "Analyse du jeu des Échecs" cited one game in which Black moved first. Johann Horny, in a book published in Germany in 1824, wrote that Black moves first. Phillip Sergeant wrote in his book "A History of British Chess" of the great Alexander McDonnell (1798–1835), remembered today for his series of matches with Labourdonnais: He preferred to have Black, as