If you play it
Classical openings lead to long manoeuvring games where nothing is forced. That is where accuracy quietly leaks — not in the first ten moves, but in the twenty after them.
The quiet Italian: both sides build slowly with d3 before anything opens. Positional, and much less forcing than its reputation suggests.
From 2,295 games by 455 Chess.com players of every level, September 2026.
In line with White's average at this level (51.8%). 590 games by 165 players · 4.4% draws
In line with White's average at this level (52.4%). 243 games by 45 players · 3.7% draws
In line with White's average at this level (51.4%). 94 games by 20 players · 5.3% 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.
Classical openings lead to long manoeuvring games where nothing is forced. That is where accuracy quietly leaks — not in the first ten moves, but in the twenty after them.
Main lines are well charted, so the other side is usually following something for a while. The gap tends to open after the theory runs out, in the long manoeuvring that follows.
Each line opens its theory page on Chess.com.
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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.