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Scandinavian Defense

Moves

Black scores

49.4%

About even
Loses moreEvenWins more

47.4% won3.9% drawn48.7% lost

Theory 43.6% · Stockfish +0.7

Every level and clock · 171M games

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
h8
g
f
e
d
c
b
a
1...d5
Analyze this line move by move
Your levelnot setDrag to yours ↔
<100010001200140016001800200022002500+

Win rate by rating

Black’s score falls away as the rating rises.

RatingScore against evenScoreWonGames
49.8%47.8%10M
48.3%46.6%16M
49.1%47.4%23M
49.7%48.0%31M
49.9%48.0%35M
49.7%47.5%30M
49.0%46.6%16M
47.6%45.0%6.9M
45.5%42.2%1.1M

Every clock · Tap a row to set your level.

What does White play next?

White's most played reply is 2.Nf3, the Tennison Gambit.

Is the Scandinavian Defense good?

Even for Black, across every level and clock.

Everyone49.4
Stockfish43.6

Stockfish at depth 22 · +0.7 for White

Floor 49.3 is the worst score you would still get, 90% confident.

Among the families

15th of 65 families Black can choose

Where it wins · rating × clock

<100010001200140016001800200022002500+Every levelUltraBulletBulletBlitzRapidClassical
Best 57.9% · under 1000 ultrabulletWorst 37.8% · 2500+ ultrabullet

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

Average game length

How do you score in your own openings?

Leaks reads your recent games and lists the openings you score worst in.

See my openingsSave and drill this line

More Scandinavian Defense lines

Most played first; each line counts its own games.

All 42 Scandinavian Defense lines, ranked

42 variations · ranked by floor

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

1
Scandinavian Defense: Portuguese Gambit162K games
62.7%Floor 62.5%
2
Scandinavian Defense: Portuguese Gambit, Banker Variation121K games
61.0%Floor 60.7%
3
Scandinavian Defense: Zilbermints Gambit8.4K games
59.9%Floor 59.0%
Scandinavian Defense: Panov Transfer2.0M games
54.7%Floor 54.6%
Scandinavian Defense: Icelandic-Palme Gambit1.9M games
53.6%Floor 53.5%
Scandinavian Defense: Kloosterboer Gambit634K games
53.2%Floor 53.1%
Scandinavian Defense: Schiller-Pytel Variation, Modern Variation2.0K games
54.9%Floor 53.1%
Scandinavian Defense: Anderssen Counterattack, Orthodox Attack19K games
53.3%Floor 52.7%
Scandinavian Defense: Kiel Variation169K games
52.8%Floor 52.6%
Scandinavian Defense: Bronstein Variation271K games
51.8%Floor 51.7%
Scandinavian Defense: Main Line, Mieses Variation2.3M games
51.5%Floor 51.5%
Scandinavian Defense: Kádas Gambit36K games
51.7%Floor 51.3%
Scandinavian Defense: Portuguese Gambit, Classical Variation212K games
50.9%Floor 50.8%
Scandinavian Defense: Main Line16M games
50.8%Floor 50.8%
Scandinavian Defense: Portuguese Gambit, Wuss Variation341K games
50.7%Floor 50.6%
Scandinavian Defense: Classical Variation307K games
50.7%Floor 50.5%
Scandinavian Defense: Blackburne Gambit2.0M games
50.6%Floor 50.5%
Scandinavian Defense: Modern Variation18M games
50.1%Floor 50.1%
Scandinavian Defense: Blackburne-Kloosterboer Gambit2.1M games
50.1%Floor 50.0%
Scandinavian Defense: Schiller-Pytel Variation204K games
50.1%Floor 49.9%
Scandinavian Defense: Boehnke Gambit2.2M games
49.8%Floor 49.8%
Scandinavian Defense43M games
49.7%Floor 49.7%
Scandinavian Defense: Valencian Variation, Ilundain Variation474K games
49.8%Floor 49.7%
Scandinavian Defense: Gubinsky-Melts Defense4.0M games
49.5%Floor 49.4%
Scandinavian Defense: Valencian Variation27M games
48.9%Floor 48.9%
Scandinavian Defense: Richter Variation226K games
49.0%Floor 48.8%
Scandinavian Defense: Portuguese Gambit, Correspondence Refutation41K games
48.7%Floor 48.2%
Scandinavian Defense: Valencian Variation, Main Line971K games
48.2%Floor 48.2%
Scandinavian Defense: Mieses-Kotroc Variation42M games
47.8%Floor 47.8%
Scandinavian Defense: Marshall Variation2.0M games
47.7%Floor 47.6%
Scandinavian Defense: Anderssen Counterattack212K games
46.4%Floor 46.2%
Scandinavian Defense: Modern Variation, Gipslis Variation667K games
46.3%Floor 46.2%
Scandinavian Defense: Lasker Variation221K games
46.0%Floor 45.8%
Scandinavian Defense: Portuguese Gambit, Jadoul Variation9.4K games
46.4%Floor 45.6%
Scandinavian Defense: Anderssen Counterattack, Collijn Variation22K games
45.4%Floor 44.8%
Scandinavian Defense: Portuguese Gambit, Elbow Variation12K games
44.6%Floor 43.9%
Scandinavian Defense: Anderssen Counterattack, Goteborg System93K games
43.8%Floor 43.6%
Scandinavian Defense: Main Line, Leonhardt Gambit1.1M games
43.6%Floor 43.5%
Scandinavian Defense: Modern Variation, Wing Gambit405 games
46.8%Floor 42.8%
Scandinavian Defense: Grünfeld Variation8.6K games
43.3%Floor 42.4%
Scandinavian Defense: Portuguese Gambit, Melbourne Shuffle Variation6.0K games
43.2%Floor 42.2%
Scandinavian Defense: Portuguese Gambit, Lusophobe Variation8.1K games
39.4%Floor 38.5%
Analyze Scandinavian Defense PositionsSee what each move is worth at your rating, move by move

Methodology

Across every level and clock, the Scandinavian Defense family scores 49.4% for Black, with a range running from 49.3% to 49.4% around that figure, from 171M rated Lichess games across 42 variations. 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
171M 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.