In *"Graph theory as I have known it"*, [p.12, Knights Errant](https://books.google.com/books?id=uYW2tttqQ74C&pg=PA12), the late Tutte mentions as an aside the chess question *"Does either Black or White have a certain win from the initial position, given perfect play by both sides"*.


Is there any literature on that possibility of a black win, that is the possibility of the initial chess position being mutual zugzwang? What is the earliest reference to the question?


EDIT:
If posed in chess.stackexchange, the community might give an answer based on chess strategy. However the question of evaluating chess has a venerable mathematical tradition, including non-trivial work by Zermelo, Shannon & Elkies. So the intention of posting here in math.overflow is to ask from a purely mathematical perspective, e.g. what has combinatorial game theory to say?



A chess question of W.T. Tutte
The question "does either Black or White have a certain win from the initial position, given perfect play by both sides" was first addressed by Wilhelm Steinitz in his 1896 "Theory of Perfect Play" (Chapter 6 of [Modern Chess Instructor](https://www.archive.org/details/modernchessinstr00steirich)). He concluded that "by proper play on both sides the legitimate issue of a game ought to be a draw".


You can find a quite detailed overview of the literature since Steinitz in [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-move_advantage_in_chess). The advantages of Black over White seem to be largely psychological ("underdog").


