As a 3… Bb4 player myself I can say that it is decided by your chess personality and your ability to handle complex positions, people who play dxe4 are typically lower rated than people who play the other variations because they enjoy playing non-tactical games which looks like a reverse scotch, Nf6 and Bb4 are common at higher levels because they go into much sharper and more complicated games which requires high levels of accuracy from both players. Another advantage of Bb4 is that against higher rated opponents it gives you a much higher chance than any other variation because instead of getting outplayed slowly you are turning it into a tactical nightmare where a single mistake from either side can be costly.
"Does opening preparation match what we actually face? Some data from the French Defense"
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"That's a really interesting point about chess personality — and it probably explains the Rubinstein (dxe4) stability I found in the data. It barely moves across all five rating levels (20–22%), which suggests it attracts a consistent type of player regardless of rating rather than being a level-dependent choice.
The c5 pattern is harder to explain by personality though. At u1400 it's the most common move at 26%, dropping to 7% at 2000+. That doesn't look like a personality shift — it looks more like a knowledge gap. Players reaching for c5 against 3.Nc3 seem to be responding as if White had played instead."
I've been analysing some Lichess game data across rating levels for the French Defense, specifically after e6 d5 3.Nc3 — the most principled White response, played in 40%+ of all games at every level.
Theory identifies three main Black replies: 3...Nf6 (Classical), 3...Bb4 , and 3...dxe4. These three moves generate the overwhelming majority of opening literature on the French. A well-prepared White player will have studied all three in considerable depth.
Here's what the data actually shows across five rating levels:
3...Nf6 — 16% at under1400, rising steadily to 42% at 2000+ 3...Bb4 — 18% at u1400, rising steadily to 27% at 2000+ 3...dxe4 — 20% at u1400, essentially flat all the way to 2000+ 3...c5 — 26% at u1400, falling steadily to just 7% at 2000+
That last one is the interesting one. 3...c5 belongs to a different variation entirely — it's the standard response to the Advance Variation (), not to 3.Nc3. Against 3.Nc3 it's theoretically imprecise. And yet at u1400 and u1600 it's the single most common move on the board.
Players at these levels have encountered the Advance more often than the Classical lines. When they see e6 d5, they reach for the response they know. They're playing the wrong game — and they don't know it.
A few things stand out:
3...dxe4 is uniquely stable — it moves between 20–22% across all five levels. It's the only reply whose frequency is essentially independent of rating.
u1800 is the transition level — all four main moves cluster within 1–2% of each other. It's the only level with no dominant response.
The literature's assumptions only become accurate above 1800–1900. Below that, a player who has prepared meticulously for the three theoretical main lines is unprepared for the most common move they'll actually face.
The broader question this raises: how much of standard opening preparation is calibrated to opponents we'll never play?
Curious whether others have noticed similar patterns in their openings.