English Opening: King's English Variation, Kramnik-Shirov Counterattack

Moves

Black scores

48.0%

Loses more

Everyone

Loses moreEvenWins more

45.8% won4.3% drawn49.9% lost

Every level and clock · 1000K games

Analyze this line move by move

2...Bb4

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<100010001200140016001800200022002500+

Win rate by rating

Black’s score holds about the same all the way up.

Score	Won	Games
48.7%	47.1%	25K
47.5%	45.9%	64K
47.9%	46.3%	138K
47.4%	45.6%	210K
47.6%	45.6%	212K
47.7%	45.5%	153K
48.9%	46.3%	97K
49.8%	46.6%	81K
48.3%	42.8%	20K

Every clock · Tap a row to set your level.

Is the King's English Variation, Kramnik-Shirov Counterattack good?

Not for Black, across every level and clock.

Floor 47.9 is the worst score you would still get, 90% confident.

Where it wins · rating × clock

<100010001200140016001800200022002500+Every levelUltraBulletBulletBlitzRapidClassical

Best 50.1% · 2200–2499 blitzWorst 43.8% · 1600–1799 classical

Faint, hatched: few games, never the best or worst. –: too few to score. Tap a cell to set your level and clock.

Average game length

0204060

This line 35All openings 34

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Analyze English Opening: King's English Variation, Kramnik-Shirov Counterattack PositionsSee what each move is worth at your rating, move by move

Methodology

Across every level and clock, the English Opening: King's English Variation, Kramnik-Shirov Counterattack scores 48.0% for Black, with a range running from 47.9% to 48.1% around that figure, from 1000K rated Lichess games. Win rate, draw rate and loss rate come from games played September 2023 to August 2026.

How the figures are made

Whose games these are: 1000K rated games played on Lichess (2023-09 to 2026-08). The games are Lichess’s and free for anyone to use. What is ours is the reading of them. Last rebuilt September 2026.
Which games we count: Rated games only — nothing casual.
Both players within 200 rating points of each other. A mismatch tells you about the gap, not about the opening.
At least 2 moves played.
A game is filed under White’s rating.
Why every number comes with a range: A number off a few hundred games is a guess. The same number off millions is a fact. The range is what tells them apart, and it is what the lists rank on — so an opening cannot reach the top on a lucky run of forty games. The more games behind a figure, the narrower its range.
What the Floor and Edge at worst are: The Floor is the worst score you would still get, 90% confident: the low end of a figure’s range, not its average. Edge at worst is how far wins run ahead of losses, 90% confident, so above zero, that side wins more than it loses even on a bad day. Each is stated for the rating and clock shown, over the games that reached the position. They are on different scales: a score sits at 50 when the sides are level, an edge at zero.
How much we need before we say anything: An opening page needs 100 games. A figure on it needs 100 games at its rating and clock: short of that the answer reads a wider scope and says so, a table row shows only its count, and a map cell shows a dash. Under 1.0K games a figure is drawn faint, and never leads a list or counts as the best or worst place the line wins. The chaos and trap lists need 500 games overall and 250 games at one rating or clock.