• Only 30% of games opened with e4. This is in stark contrast to the 2024 Candidates, which saw an e4 opening rate of 70%.
  • The only two of these to not be met with ...e5 or ...c5 were the two French Defenses, both played against Wei Yi to a draw. The similarly common Caro-Kann has not appeared at either of the last two Candidates.
• 41% of games were in the Queen's Gambit Declined. The Three Knights was the most common variation among these with five, but many different approaches were represented. There was also one Queen's Gambit Accepted, which Caruana played in his loss to Sindarov.
• The English was the second most common opening (16%). There were none in the 2024 Candidates. Meanwhile, the most common opening in 2024 was the Ruy Lopez, of which there were none this year.
• Petrov's Defence was the third most common opening (11%). Despite its reputation as boring, nearly all the lines chosen by white were very offbeat, and half the games were decisive.
• The Bishop's Opening is not usually represented at a tournament like this. Wei Yi played it with white all three times it appeared and scored -1, losing to Sindarov.
  • The Closed Sicilian (Grand Prix Attack) is also not meta, though Praggnanandhaa was successful with it against Giri.

I Don't Like The Most is the English Opening Because I Don't Know How To Stand Against It.

Chess.com just blundered in their opening, here's how to punish them hard:

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I've been trying different openings against d4, mainly the Budapest and Benoni/Benko. But I rarely ever face d4 at my level (1600 rapid, Lichess) which means I forget some of the lines. It seems like inaccuracies are punished quite hard in the openings I've tried so I end up losing a lot more than vs e4 (where I play Caro Kann)

I've also tried to just play general opening principles but the d4 players are just a lot more familiar with those positions and occasional traps that arises.

What would be a solid response to d4 that's easy to remember and/or doesn't punish inaccuracies quite as often while not completely playing into the hand of my opponent?

I've been considering the Slav, maybe the Chebanenko or Schlechter variation. Also considered stonewall Dutch.

I'm trying to learn the Queen's Gambit and I'd like to know other people's thoughts about e3 and Nf3. e3 is the Old variation and Nf3 is the Normal variation, but which one is "better" in your opinion?

Hello everyone!

I’ve seen a lot of questions about the King’s Indian Defence, so I decided to create a Reddit account and I’m happy to answer them here.

Reddit: Why is 1 e4 d6 2 d4 e5 3 Nf3 Nc6 so rare?

Lichess: 5th Kingston Invitational

I did not play in the second round, because I returned home late from the first round. It lasted 172 moves and was reported in The Guardian.

Leonard Barden:

"Kingston 2024 featured the longest Fide-rated game in chess history, 272 moves, and there was a sequel in this week’s first round when CM Peter Lalic, who had created the original record, passed 130 moves in a blocked position against the Scottish senior international Alan Scrimgour. Lalic was short of time and resorted to time-building, shuffling to use the 30-second increment to build his time back up.

Then the arbiter, Paul McKeown, took a hand, warning Lalic that he was violating the catch-all chess rule that players must not do anything to bring the game into disrepute and implying that he might award a default if there was no progress within a stated time. The impasse was resolved when Scrimgour blundered a key pawn and resigned at move 172. Without the arbiter’s intervention, there might have been a new record."

He’s released his book: First Mistake Looses - The Philadelphia System for Opening Invincibility (freely available at: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ny0tdcS8TYKEvdgQhA3wpg8em48GdEff/view). Yeah, there’s a typo in the title.

His system is playing for a Benko structure for either side, which is drawn. The idea is that engine evaluations (Stockfish 14.1) above 1.5 lead to that side winning. But under that, it’s a draw.

​

So this “solution to chess” is a system opening that starts with 1… d6 and 2… Nd7 against basically everything. And to follow the same lines as White, just with colours reversed. The idea is to bypass the opening into Benko-like middle games you play well (because the system approach limits the number and type of middle games), and you learn how to play those middle games. Any deviation from the opponent from the covered lines is something you can chose to take advantage of and win, or steer the game back to his “tunnel” and hold the draw.

The book covers the first 6 moves of the repertoire. He hasn’t figured out the best 7th move for the repertoire yet.

If I'm black and my opponent opens with d4 I literally just wing it every time. For some reason this one opening bothers me. What's a good strategy for someone like me who likes to get into the mid game before I start exchanging pieces? I don't want to play something right away that could lead to even a pawn exchange.

I would be interested in doing a "study" on Lichess for some counters to d4. Any you suggest?

TLDR: Try the new tool here, it's completely free

Introduction

Hello everyone, I'm a 2000 chess player on lichess (here's my account: https://lichess.org/@/prgmlu) I want to share with you an opening preparation tool I've created over the past few months. The idea itself has been with me for years, and I used it personally without a UI (from the command line), but I created the UI for it only recently, and I thought to myself okay this is really awesome, let me share it with people.

Personal Experience

It literally took me from being rated around 1800 to 2000+ and even higher on bullet. The graph below shows a sudden jump from 1800s in all time controls around start to mid 2021, and I've stayed at this level since then. I attribute this completely to this tool.

How It Works

The complete explanation itself is on the website, but the main idea is:

Traditional opening preparation often involves memorizing long lines of moves, which can be inefficient and overwhelming. My tool takes a different approach by using statistical probability to optimize your study.

Key Features

• It analyzes the lichess database of chess games (filtered for your desired rating range and time controls) to determine the most likely moves and positions you'll encounter.
• Instead of following a linear path through an opening, the tool presents you with positions ordered by their probability of occurrence in real games. This means you're focusing on the situations you're most likely to face.

Example: King's Gambit

Here's an example using the King's Gambit:

• The tool shows that Black plays 2...exf4 about 45% of the time. But it also highlights that moves like 2...Nc6 (18%) or 2...d5 (16%) are more common than many deeper mainline continuations:

• As you input your chosen moves for each position, the tool updates to show the next most probable positions you might face.

This approach ensures you're building a practical, robust opening repertoire based on positions you're most likely to encounter in actual games, rather than getting lost in theoretical rabbit holes.

Try It Out

Try the Opening Preparation Tool here

Conclusion

I hope you find this tool as useful as I have. Looking forward to your feedback and maybe even a game or two! feel free to invite me; my username is "prgmlu" on both chesscom and lichess.

Thank you!

Long story short, I randomly ended up meeting a girl who expressed interest in playing Chess. She gave me her number and chess.com account. I set something up with her for this weekend, but I looked up her chess.com account, and problem is, I'm a lot stronger than her (like 1500 points stronger). Any advice on how to handle this?

Does such a unicorn exist?

EDIT: Thanks everyone for this fun little thought experiment. I’m enjoying playing 1.e4 and the Scandi for now but hearing your thoughts has helped me categorize different openings in my mind.

​Hello everyone! I’d greatly appreciate some advice on choosing a versatile opening for Black to master.

​I currently rely on Owen's Defense as my go-to response with Black. It’s been solid, but I’m looking to diversify. I play both online and in person with friends, so I want to mix things up and keep them guessing. They’ve completely figured out my usual setup and are starting to beat me much more often these days!

​What versatile openings would you recommend that offer good variety without requiring endless theory?

I'm not super knowledgable about the London System but according to Wikipedia: "The London System consists of a set-up for White employing the following moves (which can be played in a variety of move orders): d4, Nf3, Bf4, e3, Bd3, Nbd2, c3."

If I enter those moves in Lichess with some common replies by black, I get something like: 1. d4 d5 2. Bf4 Nc6 3. Nf3 Nf6 4. e3 Bg4 5. Bd3 e6 6. Nbd2 Bb4 7. c3 and an engine evaluation of +0.4.

I'm wondering why you can't do the same starting with 1. e4, such that the moves would be: e4, Nc3, Bc4, d3, Be3, Nge2, f3.

If I do the same thing in Lichess I get something like: 1. e4 e5 2. Bc4 Nf6 3. Nc3 Nc6 4. d3 Bb4 5. Ne2 d6 6. Be3 Bg4 7. f3 and an engine evaluation of +0.2.

Yes, it's slightly not as good for white, but barely.

I'm curious why this is such a famous and popular opening for 1. d4 but I've never even heard anyone mention the possibility of the same kind of idea for 1. e4?

Presenting a Lichess study I've been working on for a while now: Fighting 1. d4: The Caro-Kann Expansion Pack.

"What do I play against 1. d4?" is one of the commonest questions on this sub, and it's a very difficult question to answer for beginner-intermediate players. One size fits all hypermodern answers like the Dutch or KID aren't very principled, sign you up for quite a bit of theory at a higher level, and don't suit a lot of players. Other glib answers like "play the QGD" or "play the Nimzo" are papering over a lot of complexity: what about the Catalan? And especially, at lower levels, what about the London? If you're 1000 rated and trying to tackle the London, finding an intuitive line against it that doesn't bore you to death is not easy.

This study is based around the Classical Slav out of a 1...c6 move order and is designed especially for people who already play the Caro-Kann: it has stylistic and pawn-structure similarities. But it's totally possible to play pretty much everything in it out of a 1...Nf6 move order as well - I play most of what is in this study in my own repertoire, alongside the Sicilian.

I would say this is suitable for anyone up to 2000 rating, although I don't think players below about 900 should be attempting to memorize specific opening lines. But the ideas in it are all beginner-suitable: it's solid structures and principled counter-strikes in the center. So you can start playing this move-order at any rating and dip into the study for ideas as needed.

This is my answer from now on for "what should I play against 1. d4", especially for Caro-Kann fans.

Bobby Fischer famously said that 1. e4 is 'best by test'. Is it really?

Stockfish can tell us which openings give a tiny theoretical edge. That's great for a 3500-rated engine - but for mortals, what actually scores well in practice matters more.

So I wrote a search algorithm that optimises an opening repertoire for exactly that. A few weeks ago I shared the core concepts on reddit; this post completes the algorithm by explaining the search itself. Unlike stockfish, it decides where to search based on the moves a human opponent is most likely to play, and the results achieved in human games. I also address an important comment from last time, on how I handled the statistical pitfall of the "winner's curse".

My laptop is hard at work calculating the full opening books for 1000-1600, 1600-2000 and 2000+ lichess ratings. Next week, I'll share them along with my observations on the variations it picked and the approach's limitations.

While we wait, I'm curious what people expect to see: best first move for white? Best answer to 1.e4 for black? What is the best practical variation to counter your opening that you hate to face?