diff --git a/mlxtend/feature_selection/sequential_feature_selector.py b/mlxtend/feature_selection/sequential_feature_selector.py
index b65c0f696..b18c30742 100644
--- a/mlxtend/feature_selection/sequential_feature_selector.py
+++ b/mlxtend/feature_selection/sequential_feature_selector.py
@@ -382,7 +382,8 @@ def fit(self, X, y, custom_feature_names=None, groups=None, **fit_params):
 
         else:
             select_in_range = False
-            k_to_select = self.k_features
+            k_to_select = int(len(X[1])**.5)
+            np.take(X, np.random.permutation(X.shape[1]), axis=1, out=X)
 
         orig_set = set(range(X_.shape[1]))
         n_features = X_.shape[1]