All one move defenses ranked (for black against e4)

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Avatar of Professor_Gobbles

All one-move defenses against e4 for black ranked

1. e5

2. Sicilian 

3. French

4. Caro 

5. Pirc

6. Nimzowitsch

7. Scandi 

8. Modern

9. Alekhine's 

10. Owen's 

11. Ware

12. Carr

13. St. George

14. Lemming

15. Hippo

16. Goldsmith

17. Barnes

18. Polish (b5)

19. Borg

20. Duras

This is just my opinion, let me know what you think!   

Avatar of Chess_Player_lol

i think sicilian is #1 an e5 is #2

also pirc is pretty much a slightly more flexible modern defense so i would put it as #7

Avatar of AnxiousPetrosianFan

I would definitely rather play the Owen defence than Alekhine. To me that's just asking to have your knight chased around the board. Maybe good players can get away with it but I wouldn't want to start a game like that. Or a hippo setup, I would take that over Nf6 to e4

Avatar of alphaous

1. Sicilian

2.e5

3.Caro-Kann

4.French

Avatar of Chess_Player_lol
Steven-ODonoghue wrote:

The St. George defense (1...a6) is a serious opening that is much better than it looks at first glance. I don't even know what the Ware or Carr openings are, but St. George probably derserves to be higher then them.

def not better than the caro but probably better than ware

Avatar of alphaous

Carr, not Caro lol.

Avatar of SimaGuang

I'd give a tie for e5 and Sicilian and switch Alekhine and Nimzowitsch but I'm biased

Avatar of adityasaxena4

That's how I would rank it 

#1 St George and Polish

#2 Carr and Borg

#3 Goldsmith 

#4 Ware 

#5 Nimzowitch and Lemming

#6 Kings Pawn (1.e5) and Barnes 

#7 French

#8 Owens

#9 Caro-Kann 

#10 Modern 

#11 Scandi

#12 Pirc

#13 Hippo

#14 Sicilian

#15 Alekhine and Duras

 

 

Avatar of alphaous
adityasaxena4 wrote:

That's how I would rank it 

#1 St George and Polish

#2 Carr and Borg

#3 Goldsmith 

#4 Ware 

#5 Nimzowitch and Lemming

#6 Kings Pawn (1.e5) and Barnes 

#7 French

#8 Owens

#9 Caro-Kann 

#10 Modern 

#11 Scandi

#12 Pirc

#13 Hippo

#14 Sicilian

#15 Alekhine and Duras

 

 

This might be the worst list I have ever seen.

Avatar of Professor_Gobbles
alphaous wrote:
adityasaxena4 wrote:

That's how I would rank it 

#1 St George and Polish

#2 Carr and Borg

#3 Goldsmith 

#4 Ware 

#5 Nimzowitch and Lemming

#6 Kings Pawn (1.e5) and Barnes 

#7 French

#8 Owens

#9 Caro-Kann 

#10 Modern 

#11 Scandi

#12 Pirc

#13 Hippo

#14 Sicilian

#15 Alekhine and Duras

 

 

This might be the worst list I have ever seen.

haha??

Avatar of Fisikhad
Scandi is crap to me
Avatar of darkunorthodox88

Tier 1

 Sicilian, King pawn    

not only objectively really good, but immensely flexible which is very important.

tier 2

French, Caro kahn,   

Objectively as good, but not as flexible , slightly harder to play for win with uncooperative opponent

tier 3

Pirc/modern, Nimzowitsch, Owen, Alekhine, Scandinavian  ( no order here, too hard to judge)

objectively take longer to equalize and black walks in narrow corridors in critical lines. Usually not flexible at all , (or when they are flexible, the sidelines are not objectively that great), but black at least gets a fighting game in a lot of these lines

Tier 4 

St george

It has independent significance, but simply isnt as sound as tier 3. 

Tier 5 the rest.

most defenses here have no independent significance or are a joke. They also tend to weaken black's structure. Interesting the Borg 1.g5 has the most independent significance with at least a sort of structure to go for, but is simply objectively terrible, and worse than most of the other defenses if white plays well.

 

Avatar of adityasaxena4
alphaous wrote:
adityasaxena4 wrote:

That's how I would rank it 

#1 St George and Polish

#2 Carr and Borg

#3 Goldsmith 

#4 Ware 

#5 Nimzowitch and Lemming

#6 Kings Pawn (1.e5) and Barnes 

#7 French

#8 Owens

#9 Caro-Kann 

#10 Modern 

#11 Scandi

#12 Pirc

#13 Hippo

#14 Sicilian

#15 Alekhine and Duras

 

 

This might be the worst list I have ever seen.

why?

Avatar of DrSpudnik
Fisikhad wrote:
Scandi is crap to me

It's crap to everyone.

Avatar of alphaous
adityasaxena4 wrote:
alphaous wrote:
adityasaxena4 wrote:

That's how I would rank it 

#1 St George and Polish

#2 Carr and Borg

#3 Goldsmith 

#4 Ware 

#5 Nimzowitch and Lemming

#6 Kings Pawn (1.e5) and Barnes 

#7 French

#8 Owens

#9 Caro-Kann 

#10 Modern 

#11 Scandi

#12 Pirc

#13 Hippo

#14 Sicilian

#15 Alekhine and Duras

 

 

This might be the worst list I have ever seen.

why?

Why don't you give me your reasoning? It looks to me like you randomly placed them with absolutely NO thought for opening principles and master play. I want to know how you will justify it before responding.

Avatar of tygxc

See figure 30 in this paper with AlphaZero
https://arxiv.org/pdf/2111.09259.pdf 

Avatar of Kaon_497

Barnes might be the worst of the worst!

Avatar of Kaon_497

Or maybe just b5…

Avatar of adityasaxena4
alphaous wrote:
adityasaxena4 wrote:
alphaous wrote:
adityasaxena4 wrote:

That's how I would rank it 

#1 St George and Polish

#2 Carr and Borg

#3 Goldsmith 

#4 Ware 

#5 Nimzowitch and Lemming

#6 Kings Pawn (1.e5) and Barnes 

#7 French

#8 Owens

#9 Caro-Kann 

#10 Modern 

#11 Scandi

#12 Pirc

#13 Hippo

#14 Sicilian

#15 Alekhine and Duras

 

 

This might be the worst list I have ever seen.

why?

Why don't you give me your reasoning? It looks to me like you randomly placed them with absolutely NO thought for opening principles and master play. I want to know how you will justify it before responding.

Lowest amounts of theory possible and if played correctly indestructible :

St George, Carr, Ware, Polish, Borg, and Goldsmith 

Somewhat theoretical with fewer amounts of theory :

Nimzowitsch, Lemming, Kings Pawn (1.e5) and Barnes, French , Owens and Caro-Kann

Highly theoretical with too much theory and worst: Modern, Scandi, Hippo, Alekhine, and Duras 

These are the rankings 

Avatar of Professor_Gobbles
alphaous wrote:
adityasaxena4 wrote:
alphaous wrote:
adityasaxena4 wrote:

That's how I would rank it 

#1 St George and Polish

#2 Carr and Borg

#3 Goldsmith 

#4 Ware 

#5 Nimzowitch and Lemming

#6 Kings Pawn (1.e5) and Barnes 

#7 French

#8 Owens

#9 Caro-Kann 

#10 Modern 

#11 Scandi

#12 Pirc

#13 Hippo

#14 Sicilian

#15 Alekhine and Duras

 

 

This might be the worst list I have ever seen.

why?

Why don't you give me your reasoning? It looks to me like you randomly placed them with absolutely NO thought for opening principles and master play. I want to know how you will justify it before responding.

The best openings are the ones that contest the center. Putting borg and st George and oher openings that are objectively losing for black before some of the top, most played openings is wrong.