Can't create game with specific side any more

@BeDecentForAChange said in #219:

Thibault is not saying the rating pool is affected. He is saying that people are abusing this to exclusively (or excessively) play white.

To train one opening can be very excessively, and? - I do it with both colours, but not same time.

@goldenCrab said in #229:

To train one opening can be very excessively, and? - I do it with both colours, but not same time.

Training one opening is not the issue. The issue is people abusing the color picking setting to only play with white.

@Roydestero_98_lims said in #228:

The problem with that is that there might be people who don't want to play for rating, and are now saddled up with these clowns who only play with white. So they then have to accept unfair circumstances just because they don't play for a rating.

Hmmm, the players, who have a problem with opponents playing white, want to play what colour? - White?

@Sofia-Mary said in #231:

Hmmm, the players, who have a problem with opponents playing white, want to play what colour? - White?

Nobody here has a problem with their opponent playing white. The problem is with people that abuse the choice of colour so that they ONLY play white.

If people would just use this in a fair way, there would be no problem at all

clowns? seriously? My mum always plays white, 83 years old. I wonder whats wrong with you, but it is somehow this change, people want to impose control, how people like to enjoy a game. if you play, you must play both colours.

How sad, and thibault part of this change in society. Rating wise, this change has no effect (as explained). Ye, we get a limited version of lichess, for no other reason to satisfy others who dont like my mum to play white only.
Even not in casual games.
If you had told this 20 years ago, nobody would believe. Yet, it is happening. Mind Control everywhere, now it reaches lichess, too.

Now that Lichess has made this inefficiency update by taking away colour options in casual games, the question for me is how to go about training a particular opening or black/white rep.

1 Just train white + black.

Not as effective as when you are interested in looking at a particular opening or colour rep. If you want to train black and get white then there's going to be a lack of enthusiasm for playing white.

2 Abort games until you get the colour you want.

A bit unsporting for the other player wasting their time and you'll eventually get time bans.

3 Play with bots.

I am not interested in playing non-human like AI.

4 Invite players to black/white.

Totally impractical.

5 Play on chess.com.

I don't like the platform for playing. Time controls are also different (I prefer 5 3). Tried it for 3 2 but eating ages for a match up.

I think lichess had a bug.
When I choose to play one side after first game with opponent for next game the side was changed although I selected specific color. This bug didn't allow me to play same player more than one time in sequence.
I think to hide this bug they disabled option to select one side. :)

@BeDecentForAChange said in #232:

If people would just use this in a fair way, there would be no problem at all

And the 75 games you played here, with abusive or excessively played 58 black games, allows you to judge?

Wondering again.

@Sofia-Mary said in #236:

And the 75 games you played here, with abusive or excessively played 58 black games, allows you to judge?

Wondering again.

It would be impossible to get the exact even amount on either side, especially with such a low number of games. Luckily, there is no need to wonder about this, since any form of abuse is now mitigated anyway! :)

Let's start with a simple, undeniable fact:
If a subset of the whole player pool has much more games with white than with black, then the rest of the pool has more games with black.

Now my assumptions.

• These who select to play white outnumber those who select to play black.
• Lichess has statistics about this.
• Players who don't select a colour expect a chance of 50% to get white.

Conclusions:
Players who do not select a given colour have to play more frequently with black than with white.
Lichess has found, that the chance to get black when selecting no colour is significantly bigger than 50%
Lichess reacted.