Lichess2023-12 to 2025-11
It depends on your side and your level, and both are answerable. These guides rank openings by the worst score each still clears, 90% confident, at your own rating and clock, from 2.1B rated Lichess games played December 2023 to November 2025, with the engine's view of every position printed beside the result.
Source Lichess · played December 2023 to November 2025
A guide makes the choice with you: a shortlist for one side, at one level and clock, with what each line is trying to do, who it suits, where it stops working, and the engine’s view beside the result. It is a decision.
Opening data is the reference the guides are built on: every opening the corpus counted, at every rating and clock, with the evidence behind each figure. Go there to look something up or to compare openings a guide does not shortlist.
A guide makes a choice: it ranks a shortlist for one side at your rating and clock, says what each line is trying to do, and hands you the position. The opening data is the reference behind it — every opening the corpus counted, at every scope, there to be looked up and compared.
The one for the side you are choosing for. White picks the first move, so that guide ranks one list. Black does not, so that guide ranks two: replies to 1.e4 and replies to 1.d4.
By the Worst case figure — the worst score a line still clears, 90% confident — at the rating and clock you select, not by its average. A steady result is worth more to a player than a high average that swings, and a line counted over too few games is not ranked at all. Every guide prints how many games each figure rests on.