players cancelling games to avoid playing black pieces?

@ILikeBlitz said in #10:
> Some people play more often with Black because they participate in simuls.

If this is true, then wouldn't it mean these accounts would then get the white pieces more often in quick pairings because of the stochastic nature of the algorithm, and that accounts which don't participate in simuls would end up playing the black pieces more often? It seems to me a better approach would be to make each quick pairing have an exact 50/50 probability of the white pieces, unless your previous game was aborted.

> If this is true, then wouldn't it mean these accounts would then get the white pieces more often in quick pairings

haven't looked at the code, but simul games are casual games. and i doubt casual games are counted for that purpose.

> It seems to me a better approach would be to make each quick pairing have an exact 50/50 probability of the white pieces

that way you would end up way more often with an unbalance game history, as #6 and #7 pointed out.

anyway, i believe you are way overthinking this. all that matters is that you will get approximately 50/50 in the long run. a couple black/white games more or less really does not matter.

It is probably true that I am overthinking it, yes. The problem is a minor one, but it does seem that there is a pretty simple solution which is being ignored.

@unchemyst said in #13:
> it does seem that there is a pretty simple solution which is being ignored.
As we tried to explain, your stats do not actually show any problem, they rather show that the system works perfectly fine. Why should lichess aply a simple solution to a problem which does not really exist?

Also, your suggested "simple solution" to this non-problem introduces new problems.
@unchemyst said in #1:
> [...] Could we make it so that when a game gets cancelled before the first move, both players end up playing the same set of pieces in their next game? [...]
That is quite impractical. Suppose X, playing Black, aborted the last game. Suppose X plays Y in the next game. Y will then have to play White when maybe they aren't due for White. Or perhaps Y also aborted the last game when they had Black. It isn't going to work.

Happens to me a lot too. Very annoying.