Color Allocation

The color will even out over time.  You cant compare tournament pairings with online games over a period of time.

I didnt see any posts where you took issue with having white 8 out of10 games, or 4 whites in a row?

even if I had, it would still suggest the color allocation isn't working right. it needs to be fixed.

answer the original question please.

I did.  It evens out over time.  Look at your total games, and how many games with white, and black you have had.

And the point remains that you have an issue with this if you get black to many times in a row, but have no problem with the "color allocation" when you get white to many times.  

Beside all of that, you won those games with black.

so you're on staff and speak on behalf of the programmers who wrote the code?

If this is all you have gotten out of my replies, i have nothing else to add.  

as far as I can tell you're trolling.

Record

 Wins   LossesDrawsGames

Total5887 (65%)   2905 (32%)239 (3%)        9031

White: 530 (50%)  478 (45%)44 (4%)1052 (12%)

Black: 469 (44%)   536 (50%)57 (5%)1062 (12%)

So going back to the original post... how is allocation being determined?  or to rephrase, why aren't color alteration rules being enforced?

Re-read that, and hopefully you will realise it's impossible. Player A has just had black. Player B has just had black. Player A is drawn against Player B in the next game.

madhacker is right (as is GodsPawn2016). When the system pairs two people together, it has to look at color history of both players and try to even out both. In any given strings of games, you could get a lot of the same color but over the long haul, everything will even out.

This implies that both fide and uscf rules are ignored regarding color allocation rules and strictly relies on random assigment.  I think this is not good.  the laws of statistics say that eventually it will even out, but applying common sense conventions such as when both are due same color, higher rated player alternates should still be implemented.  both fide and uscf rules do not allow for same color for more than two games in a row. they reassign the players when that situation arises.  chess.com should implement similar rules.  it makes me wonder if the tournaments here on chess.com ignore those rules but uscf rates the events.  that would be questionable as well.

Keep in mind this is the forum for making suggestions and as such color allocation rules are fair game to call into question in regards to current practices.  i would strongly suggest this is one area where chess.com exhibits weakness and needs to work on improvement.

The higher rated player will get priority for due colour, all else being equal.

Can't speak for USCF, but definitely not true in FIDE rules.

USCF rules state that you can have the same color 3 times in a  row.

For tourney games, there are different rules. FIDE and USCF rules were never designed for people playing hundreds of games a day or even more.

There is a weakness in the tourneys here, in regards to color allocations, due to the way they system tries to balance it. But for regular games, it really doesn't matter and the system works really well in trying to balance overall.

And it is understood that you are making a suggestion. I don't know what the back-end code looks at. Having a recent look-back to try and maximize 3 in a row probably shouldn't impact things too much and might be something the site would be willing to look into, assuming they don't already try to do that. Even in such a case, it is possible that two players will have the same recent color allocation history and one of them would get another of the same.

LOL - what's that kettle called !?

I have never seen more people get so bent out of shape and comment on such a suggestion about trying to improve color allocation rules.

Martin has been the only person here who seems to take the subject seriously and answer responsibly. Everybody else seems to want to shoot the messenger.  😀

Martin would it be possible to have a formal write up from chess.com posted somewhere that describes in sufficent detail how the pairing process actually works?

That would be a staff question. I don't see anything in the help about it and a quick search doesn't turn anything up concrete.

https://support.chess.com/customer/en/portal/articles/1622811-how-are-seeks-matched-in-live-chess-

This is the closest thing and it doesn't say anything about color. My guess is that color only comes into play after an opponent is chosen. Then it probably just looks at who is most out of balance and gives them the correct color to move them more into balance.

I would be willing to bet that post is a bit dated but I couldn't quite tell.  It certainly was written before v3. perhaps an update could discuss the color allocation question.  One thing seems certain to me, if both players are due the same color, the pairing rule that the higher rated player alternates doesn't work or wasn't implemented.  If it was implemented, it should be retested to see if it's still working.  I was the higher rated player in 8 of those 10 games that I flagged.