King's Pawn Game
Moves
White scores
51.9%
About evenEveryone
Loses moreEvenWins more
50.0% won3.8% drawn46.2% lost
Theory 52.9% · Stockfish +0.3
Every level and clock · 100M games
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
a1
b
c
d
e
f
g
h
1.e4
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Win rate by rating
White’s score holds about the same all the way up.
| Rating | Score against even | Score | Won | Games |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 51.2% | 49.1% | 18M | ||
| 52.5% | 50.6% | 18M | ||
| 52.3% | 50.5% | 20M | ||
| 51.6% | 49.8% | 19M | ||
| 51.9% | 50.0% | 14M | ||
| 51.9% | 49.8% | 7.4M | ||
| 51.8% | 49.6% | 2.6M | ||
| 52.2% | 49.7% | 786K | ||
| 53.0% | 45.2% | 104K |
Every clock · Tap a row to set your level.
What does Black play next?
Black's most played reply is 1…c6, the Caro-Kann Defense.
- 1…c649.4%Caro-Kann Defense · Theory 53.5%59M games
- 1…g650.5%Modern Defense · Theory 55.8%52M games
- 1…d651.0%Pirc Defense · Theory 54.6%46M games
- 1…d550.4%Scandinavian Defense · Theory 56.4%43M games
- 1…b651.5%Owen Defense · Theory 57.7%37M games
- 1…c550.3%Sicilian Defense · Theory 54.4%21M games
- 1…e647.4%French Defense · Theory 53.9%14M games
- 1…Nf652.6%Alekhine Defense · Theory 57.3%7.6M games
Is the King's Pawn Game good?
Even for White, across every level and clock.
Everyone51.9
Stockfish52.9
Stockfish at depth 22 · +0.3 for White
Floor 51.9 is the worst score you would still get, 90% confident.
Among the families
30th of 66 families White can choose
Where it wins · rating × clock
Best 57.7% · 2000–2199 classicalWorst 46.6% · under 1000 ultrabullet
Faint, hatched: few games, never the best or worst. Tap a cell to set your level and clock.
Average game length
0204060This line 32All openings 34
How do you score in your own openings?
Leaks reads your recent games and lists the openings you score worst in.
See my openings
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More King's Pawn Game lines
Most played first; each line counts its own games.
All 34 King's Pawn Game lines, ranked
34 variations · ranked by floor
Floor — the worst score you would still get, 90% confident.
1
King's Pawn Game: Damiano Defense, Damiano Gambit114K games
2
King's Pawn Game: Damiano Defense4.8M games
3
King's Pawn Game: Beyer Gambit1.6M games
King's Pawn Game: La Bourdonnais Gambit21K games
King's Pawn Game: Gunderam Defense, Gunderam Gambit4.1K games
King's Pawn Game: Gunderam Gambit1.3M games
King's Pawn Game: Wayward Queen Attack14M games
King's Pawn Game: Tayler Opening, Inverted Hanham73K games
King's Pawn Game: Maróczy Defense5.0M games
King's Pawn Game: Damiano Defense, Damiano Gambit, Chigorin Gambit2.9K games
King's Pawn Game: Philidor Gambit13K games
King's Pawn Game: Busch-Gass Gambit12M games
King's Pawn Game: Napoleon Attack8.8M games
King's Pawn Game: Clam Variation, Radisch Gambit54K games
King's Pawn Game: McConnell Defense9.1M games
King's Pawn Game: MacLeod Attack4.7M games
King's Pawn Game: Bavarian Gambit34K games
King's Pawn Game: Tayler Opening1.3M games
King's Pawn Game: Tayler Opening, Basman Gambit2.4K games
King's Pawn Game: Leonardis Variation23M games
King's Pawn Game: Mengarini's Opening749K games
King's Pawn Game: Clam Variation, King's Gambit Reversed372K games
King's Pawn Game: Alapin Opening796K games
King's Pawn Game4.8M games
King's Pawn Game: MacLeod Attack, Lasa Gambit80K games
King's Pawn Game: Busch-Gass Gambit, Chiodini Gambit174K games
King's Pawn Game: Dresden Opening387K games
King's Pawn Game: Wayward Queen Attack, Kiddie Countergambit2.8M games
King's Pawn Game: Weber Gambit46K games
King's Pawn Game: Tortoise Opening665K games
King's Pawn Game: King's Head Opening3.0M games
King's Pawn Game: Schulze-Müller Gambit127K games
King's Pawn Game: Pachman Wing Gambit25K games
King's Pawn Game: MacLeod Attack, Norwalde Gambit111 games
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Methodology
Across every level and clock, the King's Pawn Game family scores 51.9% for White, from 100M rated Lichess games across 34 variations, and the low and high ends of its range both round to that same figure at this precision. 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
- 100M 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.