1. I notice that many people on lichess only play as white or play the majority of their games as white. It would be neat if there was a "Scared to play as black" icon made to put next to these peoples' usernames.
2. I think people should have two ratings next to their name. One rating is the normal rating, the other rating should be an average of their normal rating and average opponent rating.
I'm one of those people who play as white the majority of the time. I do it because 2 things.
1. I'm playing around with a bunch of openings for white, and I don't want to throw myself off by having to remember another opening as black. If I can consecutively play as white using lets say, the danish gambit, it's easier for me to improve because I can focus on fixing my mistakes in the danish gambit as white, and not have to worry about the mistakes I make in the sicilian defense as black. Does that kinda make sense?
2. It may be just me, but I've found chess to be different between white and black. In the opening, White almost always has to be aggressive, or at least maintain his one step lead in development and further throw black's tempo off with aggressive moves or gambits. Black on the other hand starts off with the thought of trying to take the lead from white and focuses on either keeping up in development or taking the initiative from white (e.i. various sicilian defence variations that allow this) The higher you rank up in chess, the more obvious these ideas get. So rather than playing white, then black, then white, then black, juggling between these two ideas, I find it faster for me to improve my game by playing only as white or black for a while. Of course if u were to throw me in as a black player, my chess rating goes from 1600 to 1200.
3. After constantly playing as white or black, it's easier for you to recognize certain attack patterns and positional advantages because you end up coming across them more often. A lot of GM's like Marc Arnold or Rosendo Balinas say that they are able to recognize hundreds and hundreds of attacking patterns, which leads them to victory. I think learning a lot of those patterns as white first would be easier than learning all of the black ones at the same time too.
Main point, I play as white most of the time to improve my game as white. Put me in as black and its probably an easy win for you, but I do plan on eventually switching and focusing on black next.
I'm the opposite, I prefer to play as black rather than white. In my case, though, I think that's more indicative of personality than anything. I'm not really an aggressive person, but like most small animals if you back me into a corner or threaten something/someone I care about and I transmorph into a vicious, vindictive prick. Playing black reflects that.
To terano_rex:
Your 3rd point is kinda meaningless because the patterns you mentions have nothing to do the white or black. At GM level you may get more often in attacking variations with white but on our level it doesn't matter at all.
What's the point only learning how to play as one side? Do you think being good in just one colour makes you a good chess player?
Whenever I make a game, I set it up so it's random. I hate it when people join the game, then they're black (randomly). They either immediately abort the game, or abort and offer a rematch so they can be white. I usually accept, regardless, because I just want a game of chess. Because of it, I'd say I've become pretty decent with both colours now, though I cannot help but think how shortsighted and immature they are to want to be white.
Why are you learning chess? To play well in tournaments, or to beat your friends? Most people you can beat with scholars mate, but in tournaments, at least half of your games will be as black.
All you're doing, by neglecting black, is the body builder equivalent of toning one side of your body and having the other wither away.
<Comment deleted by user>
Playing only as white is like playing tennis only with the serve.
MsCaro is correct. Publically labelling and shaming players is - for lack of a better word - an ugly thing to do.
Yes, we label cheaters because it's important for players to be aware of them. But labelling players for anything less becomes an elitist exercise.
But he plays the exchange french!!!
If you didn't read the last sentence on my post, I mentioned I DO plan to work on black later on. It's just easier to learn a lot of white openings and theories if you play solely as white, because you won't have to juggle with black's side of the theories at the same time. The concept is that rather than doing both at the same time, it's more efficient for our brains to learn it one side at a time.
As proof from personal experience, once I hit the 1300's, I didn't improve after 2-3 weeks of playing, but once I started playing solely as white, I got past that learning curve and now after 2 weeks I'm at the 1500-1600s (albeit playing only as white). Some of you may not have to resort to this kind of way of learning, but there ARE people that would probably find an easier time learning chess one side at a time. And besides, like I said, I DO plan on working with black eventually to even it out.
