Rated games should always be "random color"

You don't get to choose your color in chess tournaments over the board. I suggest that rated games should force a "random color" on the person creating the game, and the person accepting should not know that color until the game has been accepted.

Some of us like to play repeated games against the same opponent, and choose the colours opposite to that played in the last game, for fairness. How would your proposal deal with this?

Maybe only for posting an "open game." That would preserve your right to challenge a specific friend normally.

Originally posted by dpressnell
You don't get to choose your color in chess tournaments over the board. I suggest that rated games should force a "random color" on the person creating the game, and the person accepting should not know that color until the game has been accepted.

That's what I do too (set half as white and half as black). The ones that are set as black get chosen first by others 🙂 leaving me with a preponderance of white, and I wonder if some people think I'm just a "white hog" when that happens.

I guess it's a matter of preference. I would like to just select "random color" myself every time, but I think the color is chosen when I create the open invite, and then it looks like just another game with a color I chose. Like I said, I think that's what happens. I could be wrong and others may see it differently since it's my game, but I'm not sure. (That is, others see a button that says "play as white" or "play as black." I don't think I've ever seen a button in the open invites list that says "play as random color."😉

Wow.. Quotation marks followed by closing parenthesis is shown as a wink...

Not what I intended.

I don't know why " ) should come out as a wink, because , ) is how a wink is normally made here, but I've been caught on it too (and other accidental smileys where I least expected them). Nowadays I add a space if I'm doing any two symbols in sequence, just to be on the safe side.

Originally posted by SwissGambit
This isn't an over-the-board tourney. I like to set up a bunch of open invites and make half white and half black, and your suggestion would ruin that for me.

In general, I don't like suggestions that take options away from the users.

Voted down.

Originally posted by finnegan
If the colours were truly random, then half would be White and half would be Black unless you are aware of another possibility, like green?

Originally posted by finnegan
If the colours were truly random, then half would be White and half would be Black unless you are aware of another possibility, like green?

Originally posted by SwissGambit
If the colors were truly random, I could get spurts of 10 blacks in a row, for all I know.

Plus, what Trev said. If I want to try out a Fried Liver Attack against a guy who swears he knows how to defend it, I have to be white.

Originally posted by Ponderable
For this I would suggest a set-game.

The challenger should always be black in at least one game imo.