POLL: Black or White?

Remove all ads!

White. Simply because I like the color better. The only person I play chess with is my little brother, and I can trick him into going first

 

*Philosophical rambling on*
Of course, even if black won, it would become bright. History is written by the winners.
*Philosophical rambling off*

I would go for black, because then I wont need to start, doesn't really matter though

[ August 11, 2003, 21:58: Message edited by: Morgoth ]

 

I've always been called a reactionist bloodsucker, so that was black for me. Let them show they heads and I'd smite them.

But years passing, I got to be more and more agressive. Now I feel very comfortable playing white, although I can still appreciate the advantages of playing black - especially if hangover prevents me from creative thinking or if too low on caffeine to think about anything else than exploiting the opponent's mistakes.

To use MoN's schemes, it's like with women - white, with some tan from time to time

 

I like black, not because of strategy or preference, but because you can see the details of the carving better. The pieces look better.

 

You to Chev, playing black to exploit white's mistakes...

White has counter moves for every black move too! Perhaps this is why home/self trained players are so bad next to club players? All these weird ideas based on fuzzy logic. They want to play black just to exploit the stronger players. What they don't know, is that they are beeing exploited even more lethally themselves. heh

Interesting that so many people think of black as a advantagerous counterplay side instead of the defensive colour it is. The strategies with black's defensive style has nothing to do with constant counteroppotunities, but the mere fact that they are one move behind.

 

@Nobleman - Your comments are certainly valid given the assumption that your opponent knows what he/she is doing, BUT all I can say is that you obviously face a much higher caliber of player than I do these days.

I used to belong to a chess club but it ceased to exist almost a decade ago due to lack of interest. I have not really played since then, originally due to lack of opportunity but eventually also due to the fact that I know damned well that I am nowhere near as good as I used to be and have no real interest in trying to relearn everything that I have forgotten.

As a result, I mostly end up playing friends and family who want to play the occassional casual game of chess and seem to think that I will be a good opponent since I used to play and actually know how all of the pieces move.
I find playing them to be outright painful so my goal is usually to end the pain as quickly as possible.

If I play black, the dolts I play against will almost invariably start by moving out and trying to attack exclusively with one or both knights. You would think that they would eventually catch on to the fact that I am not lying about the fact that the cavalry charge opening does not work and actually try to develop an offense but I am seriously beginning to think that it will not happen during my lifetime.

If I play white, my opening with a pawn tends to prevent the knight fixation from kicking in and I usually have to wait a few minutes before my opponent makes a completely bone headed mistake.

 

Which is better: to be on offensive or defensive? Being the one who takes the blows, or the one who gives the blows? I usually choose to be the on who gives the blows.

 

@Nobleman - yes, I'm self-trained. Better now?

It doesn't matter which colour you play so long as the opponent and you are on equal level of skill. If you have a talented and cunning but inexperienced player playing white when you play black, you'll always have some advantage - especially, as I stressed, when you can't focus for any reason and are unable to apply any tactical thinking, let alone strategy. In such case, defending is really, really better than attacking (given that you still have the skill and know what you're doing, but only can't plan anything or else your head explodes). You can choose white and play defensively too, but the guy might notice it, while black's innate defensiveness is generally agreed on.

And there's no such thing as exploting a stronger player. A stronger player will kick your arse unless he makes a bad mistake, but he's not likely to repeat it, so he'll have many more wins then you, even if you score some thanks to the sheer number of times you're playing.