First of all, let me announce that my last post, Grading the Openings (Part One), unexpectedly turned into the biggest hit I’ve ever had on this blog. The blog had 1136 visitors yesterday, which is three times more than I have ever had in a single day (except during the 2012 World Championship match, when I was translating Sergei Shipov’s commentaries). Thanks to all of you, especially to the many first-timers who found their way here because of a Reddit link. I hope you’ll enjoy today’s post as well.
Today is the post I really look forward to, where I am going to name names and point fingers at the good, the bad, and the ugly of chess openings. As I mentioned last time, all of these statistics are based on a collection of all games in ChessBase, played since 2000, where both players were rated 2200 or above. There are just short of a million games meeting that description. Also, a disclaimer: I absolutely do not recommend that you choose your openings based on these statistics. They are just for fun.
And now let’s have the award envelopes…
Most Popular ECO Code
This category is won by the Alapin Variation of the Sicilian Defense (ECO code B22), 1. e4 c5 2. c3, in a landslide. Interestingly, the top five variations are all in ECO code B. In order, they are:
- B22 (Alapin Sicilian) — 17775 games
- B07 (Pirc, all variations except Classical and Austrian Attack) — 13644
- B33 (Sicilian, primarily Sveshnikov and Pelikan) — 12252
- B01 (Scandinavian) — 11306
- B06 (Robatsch, 1. e4 g6, all variations that don’t transpose into Pirc) — 11234
Interesting as the results are, to me they are a little bit skewed by the choices the ECO designers made. For example, the Scandinavian is not all that popular as an opening. But when you put all the Scandinavian Defense games into one ECO code, you’re essentially comparing it with variations of other openings, and then it looks tremendously popular. If I were designing the codes, I would at least split the Scandinavian up into two variations, 1. e4 d5 2. ed Qxd5 and 1. e4 d5 2. ed Nf6.
Because these are all openings in group B, I’d also like to list the most popular opening variations in the other categories.
- D02 (1. d4 d5 2. Nf3 various continuations — not 2. … Nf6) — 8527 games
- C41 (Philidor!) — 8395
- E11 (Bogo-Indian) — 8313
- A30 (Symmetric English — not 2. Nc3 Nc6 or 2. Nf3 Nf6 3. d4) — 8005 games
I was stunned to see Philidor’s Defense up there. I had no idea that it has become so popular among masters. Among amateurs, sure. Dang, maybe I’ll even start playing it.
Least Popular ECO Code
I thought this category would be a lot of fun, but unfortunately I don’t quite trust the results. I think that there may have been problems with categorizing some of the more unusual variations. Nevertheless, we do appear to have a clear winner: A76, the Classical Benoni with 9. … Re8 (Czerniak Variation) where White doesn’t play 10. Nfd2. It has only been played 18 times in the database. I guess the variation is played out (especially for White; I wouldn’t want to play it). Also, 10. Nfd2 is the best option for White, so not too many masters play anything else. Here are the top five unpopular openings, according to the database:
- A76 (Benoni Czerniak without 10. Nfd2) — 18 games
- E78 (King’s Indian, Four Pawns Attack) — 27 games
- E79 (King’s Indian, Four Pawns Attack) — 27 games
- D69 (Queen’s Gambit Declined, Ultra-Classical Variation that goes 1. d4 d5 2. c4 e6 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. Bg5 Be7 5. e3 O-O 6. Nf3 Nbd7 7. Rc1 c6 8. Bd3 dc 9. Bxc4 Nd5 10. Bxe7 Qxe7 11. O-O Nxc3 12. Rxc3 e5 13. de. This is truly analyzing the opening to death!) — 36 games
- A74 (Classical Benoni with 9. … a6 instead of 9. … Re8 just before the illustrated position) — 53 games
I absolutely, flatly don’t believe #2 and #3. I think these positions are being played a lot but being classified as Benonis or even as weird Sicilians. Or else maybe Rob made some mistake in tabulating the data.
Best Opening Variation for White — Common Variations
From here on, I am going to separate the ECO codes into “common” (played more than 1000 times) and “uncommon” (played less than 1000 times). The reason is that the less common variations tend to have more extreme statistics simply by virtue of less data; it doesn’t mean that they are actually stronger or weaker. Also, this was a fairly convenient division because roughly half the ECO codes are common (283) and roughly half are uncommon. And an opening that appeared less than 1000 times in a million games is showing up less than 1/1000 of the time, which is indeed pretty uncommon.
In the common category, the best opening variation for White was the A44, the Czech Benoni (1. d4 c5 2. d5 e5), shown above. White scores 63.9 percent here. It’s a little bit hard to say why it’s that good for White. Of course, Black has given White a space advantage and has not extracted any concessions in return, but still I wouldn’t have expected it to be the worst opening for Black of all 283 common ECO codes. It’s been a rough millennium for the Benoni!
Here are your top five opening variations for White (or worst for Black):
- A44 (Czech Benoni) — 63.9 percent
- D37 (Queen’s Gambit Declined with 4. Nf3 but not the Semi-Slav, Semi-Tarrasch, or Ragozin) — 63.0 percent
- A39 (English Symmetric, 1. c4 c5 2. Nc3 Nc6 3. g3 g6 4. Bg2 Bg7 5. Nf3 Nf6 6. O-O O-O 7. d4) — 62.6 percent
- A52 (Budapest Gambit with 3. … Ng4) — 62.2 percent
- E69 (King’s Indian, Fianchetto Variation, Main Line with 9. h3) — 62.2 percent
#2 doesn’t surprise me. This is an artificial category created by taking away Black’s best moves, a little bit like A76 discussed above, where we took away White’s best move. #3 does surprise me. Who would have thought that a symmetric position would lead to White’s third-highest win percentage? This truly shows that symmetric openings do not have to be drawish. #5 is a favorite of Botvinnik, who played it against both Tal and Bronstein in World Championship matches. We’re going to see his name again. Botvinnik had really good taste in openings.
Best Opening Variation for White — Uncommon Variations
Botvinnik strikes again! The champion in this category is a variation that he cooked up for his 1951 World Championship match with David Bronstein. It’s code A94, the Dutch Stonewall Variation with 9. Ba3. Unlike the previous category, I can completely understand why this is a winner for White. Black’s position is riddled with weak dark squares, and White is about to trade off Black’s dark-squared bishop. How can this be okay for Black? It isn’t. This is the only ECO code where White scores greater than 70 percent.
Here are your top five:
- A94 (Dutch Stonewall with 9. Ba3) — 70.5 percent
- D99 (Gruenfeld Defense, Smyslov Variation) — 68.1 percent
- C81 (Open Ruy Lopez, Howell Variation 9. Qe2) — 66.0 percent
- B39 (Sicilian, Maroczy Bind with 7. … Ng4) — 65.9 percent
- D51 (Queen’s Gambit Declined, with 4. … Nbd7 but not Cambridge Springs) — 65.7 percent
What’s fascinating about this category is that even though these variations are “uncommon” today, they have rich histories behind them. All of them except #4 have appeared in World Championship play. #2 was played three times by Smyslov in the 1948 World Championship tournament. #3 was played four times in the 1948 World Championship tournament. #5 was played in the final game of the Capablanca-Alekhine match of 1927. Wow! I think they are less common now because tastes change, and because White won too often for Black players to continue playing them.
Okay, this entry is already getting pretty long, so I will stop here. Next time, in Part Three: the best opening variations for Black, the most frequent “drawing variations,” the variations with the least draws, and some final comments. Stay tuned!
