I suspect that the higher the level, the more the matches will look like this, white winning every time :-)
Here, I guess, the players got tired and thus deviated from that outcome. F. drew the game that could be easily won by taking one of multiple opportunities of capturing the rook, while Z. could possibly be tilted from the Bxc2 loss of material and so missed the deadly knight attack.
The strangest thing is that in Match 14, black won 5 games to white’s 3 :-)
sites.google.com/site/atomicchesswc/matches/round-of-32I think it just depends on the type of players. I think the White win % stops increasing beyond a certain level.
Some players get to a fairly high rating by learning loads of theory as White (usually playing the same opening every time) and winning many games without making any original or difficult decisions. As Black they are less good, because:
1. They don't know other openings as well as their pet line and
2. When they come out of theory their skills aren't as good as their rating would suggest.
When players like that play each other it results in strings of 1-0 results.
The highest rated players tend to have a much better overall skill set. Even if White has a good opening they'll force the other player to make some decisions rather than stay in their comfort zone. That always leads to errors and Black will pick up more wins.
To add to what tipau said, I think that many of the lines top players play are very sharp, lines where one mistake is much more costly than in some other openings. One mistake is much more costly in these lines, especially in an already sharp game like atomic.
White does have some lines that are very drawish, and can net white a fairly easy draw if the player with white really wants that, but at higher levels players are playing for wins with white. Some of them consider a draw with white to be almost like a loss with black. This means that there are very complex and sharp positions, where both players are pushed to their limits, meaning that a win for either side can easily occur.
That being said, white certainly does have the advantage in atomic, meaning white winning is still much more likely than black winning when players are of similar skill levels. However, no forced win has yet been shown, and I personally do not believe there ever will be one found.
Whoopee! Everyone's talking about my match! Just gotta hope nobody notices the one-move loss in game 6...too late :(
