Jörg Knappen wrote on Tue, Oct 2, 2012 04:02 PM UTC:
Thanks, Matteo, for digging out the reference. It says
"Of the 2,323 public matches in fiscal 2008, white players won 1,167
and lost 1,156, a win rate of 50.2 percent, it was discovered on
Tuesday. The previous highest win rate was 49.5 percent in fiscal
1968, and the lowest 46.4 percent in fiscal 2004."
So, there was a constant black (who moves first in Shogi) advantage for
4 decades, but in 2008 the situation was reversed. Given the relative small
number of recorded Shogi games, the 2008 result may be just a statiscal
fluctuation. Are there more recent numbers published somewhere?