I was wondering about the exact meaning of winning percentage (white/draw/black) in database systems and how to use them for studying.
- How are move order variations taken care of? For instance, if I go to a certain position, the winning percentage is only calculated from games which had this exact position on the board, right?
- Let's say I look at a position from an opening which had been popular for many years. So there are lots of games in the database from those years with more or less equal percentage for black and white. Then at some point a novelty was found which gave a clear advantage for white, making the opening basically unplayable for black. As a consequence people stopped playing this opening and there are very few games in the database which show this big winning percentage for white. So if I look at some position before the novelty move, the winning percentage at that position will still show more or less equal percentages for white and black (because many pre-novelty-games get averaged with few novelty-games)?
Is this correct? If yes, IMO, the winning percentage is of rather limited use and should not be used when assessing a single position, without traversing and analyzing all the lines originating from that position.
Have there been attempts, to create a better (more useful for actual use) parameter than the "winning percentage"?