 Although it is very much a minority view , three prominent twentieth @-@ century masters claimed that White 's advantage should or may be decisive with best play . Weaver Adams , then one of the leading American masters , was the best @-@ known proponent of this view , which he introduced in his 1939 book White to Play and <unk> , and continued to expound in later books and articles until shortly before his death in 1963 . Adams opined that 1.e4 was White 's strongest move , and that if both sides played the best moves thereafter , " White ought to win . " Adams ' claim was widely ridiculed , and he did not succeed in demonstrating the validity of his theory in tournament and match practice . The year after his book was published , at the finals of the 1940 U.S. Open tournament , he scored only one draw in his four games as White , but won all four of his games as Black . Adams also lost a match to IM <unk> Horowitz , who took the black pieces in every game . 
