It appears that the fact the game is white the colour vs black the colour is troublesome to you.
Would it not be easier to push for a change of colours (e.g. yellow vs purple, red vs green)?
What about draught/checkers where the player with black pieces (or the player with the darker colour pieces) play first? Does it also need to be modified?
@ dalilmod: so in the beginning, I was just curious where this rule had come from. There's a couple of articles out there online with some unconnected information. I traced the sources to old chess books, to chess journals from the 19th century, personal writings of the main players. I'm a historian so I went into this process as much as I could with an open mind and a dedication to the actual sources. And the pattern that is building is that this rule was adopted during the height of scientific racism, literally months away from the Berlin conference ("Carving of Africa"), by top chess players (led by Steinitz) who were also important voices in the direction of European politics. There are a few writings on politics, culture that are in German that would be great if someone could help me with. But once the pattern was clear, to me this rule was adopted as part of the peak of scientific racism. And we should change it, it would bring more people into the chess world and would make the game a little more visually exciting too.
@ dalilmod - regarding the different colours -- it's a good idea, I'm totally down with that. Since the beginning of the game of chess, the pieces have been made with different materials, all different colours, custom painted ones, and the terms white and black were more for notation, not referring to the actual red/green/marble/brown/grey pieces on the board. and you just pick your colour and choose goes first by doing the chess piece in-the-fist thing. And if the pieces are white and black, either one can go first. Online, there would be two variables when you match (whether you go first, and the colour of your pieces). and then the game continues normally just as before.
this is a relevant thread, btw. https://www.chess.com/forum/view/general/black-goes-first
and this is a cool thread to visualize this discussion.
https://www.chess.com/forum/view/general/what-if-black-had-the-choice-of-first-move
@Dalilmod - re: checkers/draughts, I don't know much about the game. it's an interesting question, I'll look into it. The wiki page on checkers history has a list of countries and variants, and claims that some start with the darker pieces and others with the lighter pieces. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Checkers
Who cares about another new chess variant?
Take Philidor's book from France in the 1740s, Howard Staunton's book in England from the 1840s. There are Russian books and U.S. books from this period and they are all in the same boat til the 1880s. In Berlin, a group of chess masters called the Berlin Pleiades, including Bledow, und der Lasa, and von Bilguer, started to standardize white as always playing first. They founded a magazine, wrote a big chess analysis book, and began to push it overseas. Wilhelm Steinitz also continued this push. In his writings he talks about white humans as naturally superior and therefore deserved to go first. This is why I need a German-speaker to look at some of these documents. :)
I speak German, show me the documents
@wacky_woohoo_pizza_man sent u a request, let's connect
This is Handbuch, 1852, Berlin https://books.google.co.in/books?id=Qb8nAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=inauthor:%22Paul+Rudolph+von+Bilguer%22&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&source=gb_mobile_search&ovdme=1&sa=X&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false
God I hate old German script
I was wondering when a white supremacy apologist was going to show up, not actually read any of the evidence that was presented, and spam the thread with nonsense
You don't get to be the so called "good guy" for free. Everything has a cost. I see you through you like glass.
I'm Vietnamese. The kid who invented Ghettopoly is Taiwanese.
I speak the truth. I claim to speak the truth.
Ghettopoly sells because it speaks the truth. Negative truth, but truth nevertheless.
Stop name calling and dispute the truth I and the creator of the game speak.
The cost of being a "good guy" is doing the right thing, we should all be willing to pay that cost.
Ghettopoly costs too much.
I thought it traces back to Renaissance Italy. Ebony was considered a "Lucky" material, so going second was the trade-off.
Let's go back to the beginning.
Where was chess invented? India.
What is chess?
It's Indians fighting Indians. In Ebonics, that's called "Black on Black crime."
Chess is Indian on Indian crime.
Chinese chess, Chinese on Chinese crime.
Shogi, Japanese on Japanese crime.
You can buy a beautiful American Civil War from the Franklin Mint. And Americans are honest about it.
The Civil War: Brother against Brother.
I speak the truth.
Call it for what it is.
The Franklin Mint has sold the Civil War Chess Set for years.
@lobster62 - that's interesting. do you if it was ever a hard and fast rule, or sort of an informal custom, or just a high-percentage occurrence? Also, do you remember where you read it? from what I understand, through the 1800s, players liked to choose their favourite colour, and to some who were superstitious it was a big deal. A customary tradeoff at that time could have been to cede the first move. But what if someone thought ivory was lucky and wouldn't mind going second? thanks for the input
Take Philidor's book from France in the 1740s, Howard Staunton's book in England from the 1840s. There are Russian books and U.S. books from this period and they are all in the same boat til the 1880s. In Berlin, a group of chess masters called the Berlin Pleiades, including Bledow, und der Lasa, and von Bilguer, started to standardize white as always playing first. They founded a magazine, wrote a big chess analysis book, and began to push it overseas. Wilhelm Steinitz also continued this push. In his writings he talks about white humans as naturally superior and therefore deserved to go first. This is why I need a German-speaker to look at some of these documents. :)