The Cow: Analyzing Anna Cramling's Brainchild

I'm sure many of you have heard of WFM Anna Cramling's opening, the Cow opening. In the past 2 years, it has gained a sort of "internet notoriety" in the sense that all top grandmasters hate it, but it has a sort of cult following to come to its defense. For those who don't know of it, here's the basic Cow.

The Cow is a variation of  Van 't Kruij's opening, and is similar in style to the Hippopotamus Defense. It is playable by both White and Black and begins with advancing both center pawns one square up the board. This is followed by developing both knights in front of the king and queen. Following this, the knights are developed to the b3 and g3 squares (or g6 and b6 squares for black). It can evolve into many different positions, and is considered a less aggressive opening, atypical of Cramling's playing style.

Testing

I decided to test out how well the Cow worked over different ratings. So, I employed the help of my 600-elo sister. I played about 100 games or more with the Cow at the low-1000 level, and my sister played about 100 at the mid-600 level.

My results were, overall, mediocre. Over the course of those 100-plus games, my rating went down slightly and hovered between around 980 and around 1010. It did not improve, but did not go down significantly. I'd estimate that my win rate was around 37.5-45%. Overall, not impressive, but pretty stable. I did notice, however, that I blundered a lot more when playing the Cow, and when I switched back to my regular play, my rating skyrocketed over 116 points in under a week.

My sister, however, had a much better experience with the Cow at her mid-600 level. After a week of regularly playing the Cow, she was able to break into the 700s, and get all the way to 740 (possibly higher), with an impressive over 75-80% win rate (estimate). She credits the Cow with helping her break out of the 600s after weeks of being stuck there, and still plays it to good results. 

Computer Analysis

I pitted White playing the Cow against Black playing standard developing moves. The engine did not like the cow very much. After all moves, the game was in Black's favor with the analysis bar at 1.5. While e3 counted as a book move, Coach Mae had some pretty choice words for it.

"e3 is a weak first move that doesn't do enough to control the center."

-Coach Mae, 2025

Following this, d3 is considered an inaccuracy, nd2 as well, and then for some reason ne2 is a good move. Following this, ng3 is another inaccuracy while nb3 is a mistake. Overall, this was rated as 1750 at a 73.4 accuracy, while Black had 2400 at 89.5 accuracy. White's opening was considered a mistake, while Black's opening was found as an inaccuracy. Of course, in the Cow's defense, Black had a fair amount inaccuracies as well, and this is all assuming that the opponent played all the perfect moves.

Results and Conclusion

Looking at the statistics and results from our analysis, we can draw a conclusion about the Cow. The Cow is good for casual games at higher levels, but not for improvement at that level. At lower ratings (100-800), the Cow can be very good for playing competitively and for improvement as well. So higher ratings should stay away, but I would recommend it to lower ratings.