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English Opening (1.c4)
How do English Opening games actually end? Across 97,752 Lichess games that reached the position after 1.c4, White won 51.2%, 4.8% were drawn and Black won 43.9%. Below: the main line move by move, the most played continuations (the favorite is 1...e5), the rating effect and the opening's history.
The main line, move by move
| Move | Position name | Games | White | Draws | Black |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1.c4 | English Opening | 97,752 | 51.2% | 4.8% | 43.9% |
| 1...e5 | English Opening: King's English Variation | 30,054 | 52.0% | 4.4% | 43.5% |
| 2.Nc3 | English Opening: King's English Variation, Reversed Sicilian | 18,938 | 53.0% | 4.5% | 42.4% |
| 2...Nf6 | - | 7,543 | 51.4% | 4.9% | 43.8% |
The 5 most common continuations (for Black)
| Move | Variation | Games | White | Draws | Black |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1...e5 | English Opening: King's English Variation | 30,054 | 52.0% | 4.4% | 43.5% |
| 1...Nf6 | - | 19,278 | 48.0% | 5.2% | 46.9% |
| 1...c5 | - | 12,136 | 50.4% | 5.4% | 44.2% |
| 1...e6 | - | 11,138 | 52.1% | 4.9% | 43.0% |
| 1...g6 | - | 5,735 | 50.3% | 4.5% | 45.1% |
How rating changes the same position
| Rating band (average of the pair) | Games | White | Draws | Black |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1600-1799 | 50,997 | 51.2% | 4.2% | 44.5% |
| 2200-2499 | 2,357 | 52.5% | 7.2% | 40.3% |
The story of the opening
The English owes its name to Howard Staunton, the strongest English player of the 19th century, who used it in the 1843 match against the Frenchman Saint-Amant, the most important contest of the pre championship era. Opening with the bishop's pawn was eccentric then; it became sophistication: the English fights for the center from the flank and postpones direct confrontation.
It is the chameleon opening: it can transpose into the Queen's Gambit, become a Sicilian with colors reversed and an extra tempo, or walk its own path. Botvinnik polished it, Karpov and Kasparov wielded it in title matches, and Carlsen keeps it in rotation to this day. On Lichess it trades places with 1.Nf3 as the most popular first move after 1.e4 and 1.d4, with rates that all but tie those of the two giants.
Compare it with every other opening in the opening statistics archive, or visit its neighbors: Réti Opening and Sicilian Defense. Nerd aside: chess notation is a 64 square code, cousin to the ones living next door, like binary and Morse.
Source: the Lichess open game database (database.lichess.org, CC0 data), months 2014-06, 2015-01, 2016-01, snapshot of 2026-07-09: blitz, rapid and classical games with the players' average rating between 1600 and 2199, aggregated by move sequence. Variation names and ECO codes: lichess-org/chess-openings (CC0).
Last updated: · Methodology and sources