Petition to modify atomic chess rules!

White starts at a significant advantage, +2.2 to be precise.

Everyone familiar with atomic chess knows this. Question is, how do we concluclusively deal with it?

Actionable comments, petition signatories welcome :)

you get more + if you win with black against the same player than with white. if you lose with black you would not get as much - as if you lose with white.
That is my solution

What is with extra time for black in fast time controls

If the starting advantage were this bad then people wouldn't play it. So, chill out :P

A traditional way of dealing with games where the person moving first has an advantage is a pie rule. The simplest is for White to make a starting move, after which Black has two options: either Black moves (and the game continues in the normal sense), or Black opts to switch colours (hence, the person moving first moves again, now as Black). A more elaborate one is for the White player to make a move, then a move for Black, then for White again, after which Black gets the option to either play as Black or as White.

More complicated schemes exists where White also gets an option to switch colours.

You can also make it an auction: the time for Black is set, and both players bid for what time White gets. The person with the lowest bid wins and plays as White.

Having said that, I expect the chance that this gets implemented to be almost 0. (But then again, the sources of LiChess are freely available, you can always code it up and submit a merge request).

@Cedur216 Folks do play it, In my experience, most just happily play as white and run off...hence my petition...lol

@Cedur216 said in #4:
> If the starting advantage were this bad then people wouldn't play it. So, chill out :P
you don't have a different choice if you want to play atomic. Lots of players like atomic but think it is the white advantange is unfair

This thread can now be closed. Thanks all for feedback.

Lichess developer @toadofsky has acknowledged that the problem is within the rating code not accounting for first-player advantage. Similar to what @SchachJohnny suggested above.

Hopefully a fix will be developed and implemented.

@Abigail-III said in #5:
> A traditional way of dealing with games where the person moving first has an advantage is a pie rule. The simplest is for White to make a starting move, after which Black has two options: either Black moves (and the game continues in the normal sense), or Black opts to switch colours (hence, the person moving first moves again, now as Black). A more elaborate one is for the White player to make a move, then a move for Black, then for White again, after which Black gets the option to either play as Black or as White.

So white plays 1. Nf3, black responds 1... Nf6, and then white be like "wtf scam after my next move black can switch colors, what to play???" I like this :D

@Wolfram_EP said in #9:
> So white plays 1. Nf3, black responds 1... Nf6, and then white be like "wtf scam after my next move black can switch colors, what to play???" I like this :D

No.

You don't understand the rule.

In the first variant I described it goes:

The first player plays 1 Nf3, then the second player has two options 1) play as Black, after which he moves 1 .. Nf6 (or something else), or 2) play as white, after the first player (now Black) plays 1 .. Nf6 (or something else).

In the second variant I described, it goes:

The first player plays 1 Nf3 Nf6 2 d4, then the second player has two options 1) play as Black, after which he moves 2 .. e6 (or something else), or 2) play as white, after the first player (now Black) plays 2 .. e6 (or something else).

In either variant, the first player makes an odd number of plies (half-moves) after which the second player has the option to either play as Black (making it his move) or White (after which the first player, now Black, makes another ply). In either case, it's in the best interest of the first player to put an as equal position as possible on the board when the second player is offered a choice.