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

H. G. Muller wrote on Sun, Aug 26, 2012 01:21 PM UTC:

OK, I buy your 16x120 example. It works by virtue of the fact that advance
isn't worth anything. With an extremely deep board, and short-range
pieces, most of the moves needed to build an attack formation are needed to
cover the distance, and the opponent can grant these to you if he is
prepared to fight 'with his back against the wall', and only start to
react when you get in range.

But this argument would already fail when there are promotions. In FIDE on
an 8x80 board letting the opponent sneak up to you basically means that he
has promotion in range, while your pawns effectively become non-promoting.

And I don't think this is very relevant for square or 'landscape'
boards, where approach can be a free side effect of lateral movement of
your pieces, so that the opponent would have to start reacting immediately
on your lateral displacements.