Carpe Diem: Horde chess is another example of imbalance. I think the only effective solution to that is to only play 2-game matches for those games. Of course that's a problem with random game tournaments.

Roberto Silva: And let's not forget about Maharajah chess... that is probably the worst offender of all the games. If I play the black color, I am 100% guaranteed victory in 24 moves. Anyone who does not believe me, then send me an invite where I am black and I'll prove it to you!

cd power: Maharajah chess would be easy to balance : add two more white Maharajahs. For horde chess, its harder...

Pente is that way too. The advantage is not significant for novice players, but expert players rarely lose as Player 1.

In games like these, I think the BKRs should be calculated as follows:

Calculate BKRs separately for games in which the player moved first (Player 1) or second (Player 2). Calculate the percentage of the player's wins that come as Player 1 and as Player 2. Multiply each BKR by the player's winning percentage **of the other position**.

For example, if player has a BKR of 2000 as Player 1 but only 1800 as Player 2 and was Player 1 in 70% of his wins (meaning he was Player 2 in only 30%of his wins) then his BKR should be 2000 * .3 + 1800 * .7 = 1860.

This system usually produces better BKRs than the curent system. And it never produces worse BKRs than the curent system, at least not in any situations that I can think of. I can think of situations where this system wouldn't give a very good result, for example, when a player plays as P2 exclusively. but the system we have in place now doesn't give a good result in these situations either.

It's my understanding that in Reversi is biased as well but that in Reversie it's actually Player 2 who the advantage.