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Most popular reply to 1. e4 is a5?

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tybrown366

Here is an oddity I have encountered and I wonder if this is just happening for me.  Using game explorer for the move 1. e4 The game explorer then suggests that the most popular reply is 1....a5.  In fact it allegedly has over 490,000 games in the database with this reply (Eco appropriately numbered "B00" and named the "Ware Defense".)

 Some obscure reply called the "Sicilian" with 1. ...c5 is in a distant second place with 318k games in the database.

Well, I'm no opening expert, but surely this is bogus.  But when you actually choose the a5 reply, the next screen shows only 3 different positions in the database, with a total of 13 games resulting in those positions.  What happened to the other 490k plus games?

I imagine this is a well known issue but I wasn't sure how to search it up.  Anyway, I thought it was amusing and maybe someone can link to a thread that has already discussed this. Or maybe it's something new?  Or maybe it only happens for me? 

AnAggressivePlayer

No, it also happens to me. I think that's a bug in chess.com database. 1. ... a5 is the LEAST played response to 1. e4. Everything is shuffled by one column. 1. ... c5 is the most played response by black and the database has more than 450 000 games with it. Then comes the 1. ... e5 and so on.

Dark_Falcon

Wow...i always suggested that 1...a5 must be the strongest and most popular reply to 1.e4

Thats the proof now!!!

Maybe its a little bit unsound, because white has won all the 490.000 games...but i think i can improve this defence.