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Vienna Game (1.e4 e5 2.Nc3)
How do Vienna Game games actually end? Across 20,015 Lichess games that reached the position after 1.e4 e5 2.Nc3, White won 54.1%, 4.2% were drawn and Black won 41.6%. Below: the main line move by move, the most played continuations (the favorite is 2...Nf6), the rating effect and the opening's history.
The main line, move by move
| Move | Position name | Games | White | Draws | Black |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1.e4 | King's Pawn Game | 1,601,410 | 49.2% | 4.3% | 46.4% |
| 1...e5 | King's Pawn Game | 597,216 | 52.1% | 4.1% | 43.7% |
| 2.Nc3 | Vienna Game | 20,015 | 54.1% | 4.2% | 41.6% |
| 2...Nf6 | Vienna Game: Falkbeer Variation | 6,773 | 51.9% | 4.2% | 43.9% |
| 3.Bc4 | Vienna Game: Stanley Variation | 1,979 | 54.8% | 4.6% | 40.6% |
| 3...Bc5 | - | 583 | 55.6% | 3.9% | 40.5% |
The 5 most common continuations (for Black)
| Move | Variation | Games | White | Draws | Black |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2...Nf6 | Vienna Game: Falkbeer Variation | 6,773 | 51.9% | 4.2% | 43.9% |
| 2...Nc6 | - | 6,186 | 53.7% | 4.5% | 41.9% |
| 2...d6 | - | 2,425 | 57.4% | 4.1% | 38.4% |
| 2...Bc5 | - | 1,870 | 54.3% | 4.8% | 40.9% |
| 2...c6 | - | 799 | 55.3% | 3.5% | 41.2% |
How rating changes the same position
| Rating band (average of the pair) | Games | White | Draws | Black |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1600-1799 | 11,946 | 52.9% | 3.8% | 43.3% |
| 2200-2499 | 334 | 51.2% | 5.1% | 43.7% |
The story of the opening
The Vienna Game was born in the 19th century coffee houses of Vienna, with masters like Carl Hamppe, and it came with a clever plan: play 2.Nc3 first and only then, if convenient, push f4, a King's Gambit with the engine warmed up. Flexibility is the opening's soul: it can become a frontal attack or a quiet positional game depending on Black's reply.
After generations out of fashion, the Vienna became a darling of the online era: in blitz and rapid it combines venomous early traps with positions White simply knows better through repetition. In the Lichess numbers it tends to hand White a friendly score among 1.e4 systems, the kind of practical edge no theory book records, but the scoreboard does.
Compare it with every other opening in the opening statistics archive, or visit its neighbors: Queen's Gambit and Slav 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