Komi auction for chess matches

Consider a chess match where the players do not alternate colors between games; instead, one player plays white the entire match and the other has the black pieces for every game of the match.

Statistics and conventional wisdom have white having an advantage due to opening initiative. The question is then how to equitably award black a handicap to equalize the advantage.

A naive technique is to have an auction of the number of match points white is willing to allow black to start off with. Whoever bids a higher number gets to play white, but starts out in the hole behind in the match that number of match points.

The problem is this is too discrete. For a given length of match, both players will likely bid the same handicap, and the next increment of handicap will give the other player too much of an advantage.

Another way to do it is to fix the handicap at 0.5 match points (that is, black gets draw odds if both players win the same number of games), and the players bid on the length of the match. Whoever bids a lower number gets to play white, and has that many games to see if he or she can capitalize on having white to overcome black's handicap points. For longer matches, the fixed handicap may be 1.5 match points.

The advantage of a half-integer handicap is the match cannot end in a draw, so there is no need for rapid/blitz/Armageddon tiebreaks.

This format of the match is mutually beneficial to both players as each only needs to prepare half an opening book. It benefits spectators who will likely see a deeper theoretical discussion.