Semi-Slav Defense: Normal Variation
Black scores
48.7%
About even46.1% won5.1% drawn48.8% lost
Every level and clock · 344K 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 49.6% | 48.4% | 2.3K | ||
| 48.7% | 47.5% | 7.8K | ||
| 48.6% | 47.0% | 18K | ||
| 48.7% | 47.0% | 34K | ||
| 48.8% | 46.7% | 61K | ||
| 49.2% | 46.8% | 80K | ||
| 49.0% | 46.3% | 72K | ||
| 47.9% | 44.7% | 54K | ||
| 45.5% | 39.1% | 14K |
Every clock · Tap a row to set your level.
What does White play next?
White's most played reply is 6.Qc2, the Stoltz Variation.
Is the Normal Variation good?
Even for Black, across every level and clock.
Floor 48.5 is the worst score you would still get, 90% confident.
Where it wins · rating × clock
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
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 Semi-Slav Defense lines
Most played first; each line counts its own games.
- Accelerated Move Order47.1%2…e6 3.Nc3 c64.2M games
- Main Line46.1%1.d4 d5 2.c4 c6 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.e3 e6 5.Nf31.9M games
- Marshall Gambit44.5%2…e6 3.Nc3 c6 4.e4687K games
- Noteboom Variation48.4%2…e6 3.Nc3 c6 4.Nf3 dxc4533K games
- Chigorin Defense47.3%6.Bd3 Bd6214K games
- Anti-Moscow Gambit46.4%3.Nf3 Nf6 4.Nc3 e6 5.Bg5 h6 6.Bh4182K games
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Methodology
Across every level and clock, the Semi-Slav Defense: Normal Variation scores 48.7% for Black, with a range running from 48.5% to 48.8% around that figure, from 344K 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
- 344K 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.