Pirc Defense
Black scores
48.8%
About even46.9% won3.8% drawn49.3% lost
Theory 45.4% · Stockfish +0.5
Every level and clock · 61M games
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Win rate by rating
Black’s score falls away as the rating rises.
| Rating | Score against even | Score | Won | Games |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 50.7% | 48.7% | 3.0M | ||
| 49.5% | 47.8% | 5.1M | ||
| 49.2% | 47.6% | 7.7M | ||
| 49.2% | 47.5% | 10M | ||
| 48.9% | 47.0% | 11M | ||
| 48.7% | 46.7% | 11M | ||
| 48.3% | 46.1% | 7.6M | ||
| 46.9% | 44.5% | 4.3M | ||
| 44.4% | 41.2% | 729K |
Every clock · Tap a row to set your level.
What does White play next?
White's most played reply is 2.f4, the Harmonist.
Is the Pirc Defense good?
Even for Black, across every level and clock.
Stockfish at depth 22 · +0.5 for White
Floor 48.8 is the worst score you would still get, 90% confident.
Among the families
Where it wins · rating × clock
Faint, hatched: few games, never the best or worst. Tap a cell to set your level and clock.
Average game length
More about this line
How do you score in your own openings?
Leaks reads your recent games and lists the openings you score worst in.
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More Pirc Defense lines
Most played first; each line counts its own games.
- Classical Variation48.7%2.d4 Nf6 3.Nc3 g6 4.Nf37.8M games
- Byrne Variation45.2%2.d4 Nf6 3.Nc3 g6 4.Bg51.6M games
- Austrian Attack46.3%2.d4 Nf6 3.Nc3 g6 4.f4979K games
- Classical Variation, Schlechter Variation47.5%2.d4 Nf6 3.Nc3 g6 4.Nf3 Bg7 5.h3727K games
- Kholmov System48.3%2.d4 Nf6 3.Nc3 g6 4.Bc4602K games
- Austrian Attack, Weiss Variation48.6%2.d4 Nf6 3.Nc3 g6 4.f4 Bg7 5.Nf3 O-O 6.Bd3419K games
All 22 Pirc Defense lines, ranked
22 variations · ranked by floor
Floor — the worst score you would still get, 90% confident.
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Methodology
Across every level and clock, the Pirc Defense family scores 48.8% for Black, from 61M rated Lichess games across 22 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
- 61M 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.