Challenge for specific opening

Is there a way to issue a challenge (in either live or online) to play a specific opening?

The only thing that you can do is to agree to start from a certain position. For example, you might agree that you will start from 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Bc6 3. Bb5 a6 which is one variant of the Ruy Lopez. There are lots of tournaments that start from a position like this and therefore have a theme. I believe you can also challenge someone from a position like this too. However, each player is free to make whatever moves they like once they start.

Thank you for the response. That would meet my intent. Anyone know how to issue the challange from a given position? I've looked but not been able to figure it out.

In Online it's easy (if I understand correctly what it is you want), "Start New Game" and select "Show More Options". Then there is a pop-up menu with a list of openings. If you select "Search all openings…" you get a much wider variety of openings to choose from.