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King's Indian Defense (1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 Bg7)
How do King's Indian Defense games actually end? Across 16,082 Lichess games that reached the position after 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 Bg7, White won 47.5%, 5.0% were drawn and Black won 47.4%. Below: the main line move by move, the most played continuations (the favorite is 4.e4), the rating effect and the opening's history.
The main line, move by move
| Move | Position name | Games | White | Draws | Black |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1.d4 | Queen's Pawn Game | 697,933 | 50.4% | 4.7% | 44.9% |
| 1...Nf6 | Indian Defense | 179,238 | 45.6% | 5.0% | 49.4% |
| 2.c4 | Indian Defense: Normal Variation | 97,129 | 46.6% | 5.0% | 48.4% |
| 2...g6 | Indian Defense: West Indian Defense | 29,431 | 46.0% | 5.2% | 48.8% |
| 3.Nc3 | King's Indian Defense | 24,004 | 46.8% | 5.3% | 47.9% |
| 3...Bg7 | - | 16,082 | 47.5% | 5.0% | 47.4% |
| 4.e4 | King's Indian Defense: Normal Variation | 10,946 | 49.3% | 4.9% | 45.8% |
| 4...d6 | King's Indian Defense: Normal Variation | 9,021 | 49.0% | 5.0% | 46.0% |
| 5.Nf3 | - | 2,789 | 48.5% | 5.2% | 46.3% |
The 5 most common continuations (for White)
| Move | Variation | Games | White | Draws | Black |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4.e4 | King's Indian Defense: Normal Variation | 10,946 | 49.3% | 4.9% | 45.8% |
| 4.Nf3 | - | 2,477 | 43.8% | 5.6% | 50.7% |
| 4.Bg5 | - | 800 | 44.8% | 4.6% | 50.6% |
| 4.e3 | - | 643 | 40.4% | 6.5% | 53.0% |
| 4.Bf4 | - | 578 | 42.9% | 3.8% | 53.3% |
How rating changes the same position
| Rating band (average of the pair) | Games | White | Draws | Black |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1600-1799 | 6,477 | 47.9% | 4.4% | 47.7% |
| 2200-2499 | 786 | 44.0% | 6.6% | 49.4% |
The story of the opening
The King's Indian is the most aggressive of the Indian defenses: Black fianchettoes, lets White erect a broad center, then detonates the position with e5 or c5. Dismissed by the classicists as passive, it was rehabilitated in the 1940s and 1950s by Soviets like David Bronstein and Isaac Boleslavsky, and became the favorite weapon of two of the greatest attackers ever: Bobby Fischer and Garry Kasparov.
Its typical plot is one of the great shows in chess: White expands on the queenside while Black hurls pawns at the white king, and whoever arrives first wins. The Lichess statistics display that nature clearly: a low draw rate for a 1.d4 defense and results that swing with rating, because the attacking plan demands more precision from the player executing it than from the one absorbing it.
Compare it with every other opening in the opening statistics archive, or visit its neighbors: Nimzo-Indian Defense and Grünfeld 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