How can I set my color to play preference for live chess

ChetMaitte,

That feature was recently removed to encourage more random play of colors; rather than consistently playing only "white" or "black."

Cyber

its a players prerogative to choose the colour to play

yeah not sure why they'd get rid of that option. i play live chess to practice new openings and such. i could care less about my rating on it. therefore, if i feel like practicing a certain opening with a certain color i should be able to do so. if you don't want to play the other color then don't accept my challenge. poor move chess.com.

yes this is terrible. if not changed ill move to another site

im pissed

Yes, I noticed this today (May 10) for the first time and contacted support@chess.com.  I thought something was wrong with the program rather than an administrative change by chess.com!

I agree that a player should be able to choose the color he or she wants to play.

You can't be serious.

I also thought there was a glitch in the server and made a report. Wht right  does chess.com have to dictate to players what piece a player uses. Bad move.

Have you ever played OTB? Try telling the tournament director he has no right to dictate what colour you play-good luck with that.

yeah, sucks to have options taken away. I never heard any complaints about too many people choosing white so why change it? I actually did a lot of opening prep as black for a tournament, helped a lot.

not to mention you can choose your color in cc games, so why remove it for live chess?

@ Puchiko: in a tournament, fine you're right. live chess isn't a tournament. in fact, for some it's down-right practice at best.

Tournaments are different than internet speed chess.  In a tournament, color rotation is proper.  This is fun chess and chess.com should not be making a decision for the players!

I just joined the site and started my first two correspondence games yesterday and I wasn't given an option to choose my colour.

Does anyone know if the removal of colour choice now applies to all correspondence chess games here as well as to live chess games, or is it only because I'm a new player or because I'm not yet a subscriber? (Or maybe I missed setting an option somewhere?)

meh. dont care much, still i dont see why they would remove a feature nobody was complaining about. If you dont want to accept a challenge to play black/white then dont accept it. I always play random.

There are a lot of sites out there and this really turns me off.  I dont need a big brother telling me how to play.

Ya thats not cool.

apparently you can still choose this option is you play an unrated game. 

the change is to prevent abuse of the system and it seems sound to me. 

I think you mean couldn't care less

The explanation can be found here:

http://www.chess.com/forum/view/help-support/choosing-black-when-issuing-a-challenge-is-not-available