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A flank opening that controls the centre from a distance. It can become a reversed Sicilian, a closed manoeuvring game or a queen’s-pawn structure — often by transposition.
From 1,957 games by 627 Chess.com players of every level, September 2026.
In line with White's average at this level (51.8%). 480 games by 198 players · 2.5% draws
In line with White's average at this level (52.4%). 172 games by 53 players · 4.1% draws
In line with White's average at this level (51.4%). 129 games by 31 players · 3.1% draws
The marker on each bar is White's average score across all openings at that rating and time control. We only call an opening above or below that average when the gap is far beyond the margin (±) — about 1.7 times it — because we compare dozens of openings at once, and chance alone would make a few of them look special.
You concede the centre on purpose, so the whole opening rests on hitting it back at the right moment. Getting that moment wrong feels like being slowly squashed, and it is by far the most common way these defences fail. Flexible is not the same as passive.
They are handing you the centre and waiting to hit it. A big centre is an asset only while it is supported: the usual mistake is pushing it further and further until it stops being a wall and becomes a target.
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Every week we draw about 1,008 Chess.com players at random from the public player lists of twelve countries, never one already drawn in the previous weeks, and read their rated games from the last complete month. These numbers add up the latest 2 weekly samples: 2,016 players, 1,382 of whom played in September 2026. A game counts once even if both players are in the sample, and no single player can add more than 10 games to the same opening and time control, so one enthusiast cannot tilt the numbers. Rating bands use the average rating of the two players in that time control, because ratings are not comparable between blitz and rapid. Bands with fewer than 40 games or 10 players are shown but not judged. The score counts a draw as half a point. The ± is a 95% margin, but a gap is only judged beyond 3.3 standard errors: with many openings compared at once, a looser line would flag openings by pure chance. Players on this site are never part of the sample.