I ranked all 20 responses to e4 for black

rating does not matter on chess.com for the people who do not play it seriously. chess.com is a joke of a site putting everything behind a paywall and having a trash moderation/cheat detection system

First of all, what are you paying for? The analysis works, forums work, and you can play games, what else do you need? Second of all, the mods are actually pretty good, and I find I actually don’t ever lose to cheaters that don’t get banned effective immediately

analysis - behind paywall

mods here are good but ive been shown some bad stuff

Analysis is literally 100% free, and has always been.

Click where the arrows are pointing.

You can do this after every game, and there is no limit at all.

oh yeah i meant game review

I realized that I did make a small mistake in my ranking, I should not have put a6 below h6, because a6 helps a more asymmetrical type of castling than h6.

Here's mine.

20) 1...f5 (Duras Gambit)

Gambiting a pawn and weakening the king, this has to be the worst move against 1.e4.

19) 1...b5 (No name)

Also loses a pawn, but at least it doesn't weaken the king.

18) 1...f6 (Barnes Defense)

Just why would you do this? It again weakens the king, and it doesn't really achieve anything.

17) 1...g5 (Borg Defense)

You might as well wait to try to start a kingside attack. White has 2.d4 and is going to be the one attacking.

16) 1...Nh6 (Hippopotamus Defense)

White again has 2.d4, and he will simply have a far superior position.

15) 1...h5 (Goldsmith Defense)

Not as bad as 1...g5, but I'd still like to wait to make this move.

14) 1...Na6 (Lemming Defense)

Useless. Try doing something that isn't useless. It's better than everything before this at least, because this doesn't weaken anything or lose material.

13) 1...h6 (Carr Defense)

About the same as 1...Na6, I just prefer this.

12) 1...a5 (Ware Defense)

Again about the same as the last two, but my preference is this one between the three.

11) 1...a6 (St. George Defense)

Doesn't accomplish much.

10) 1...g6 (Modern Defense)

I really don't like the Modern. As white I can usually just get a strong attack against the king, where I win easily a lot of the time. With that being said, I can still say it's objectively better than the rest of the openings before this one.

9) 1...d6 (Pirc Defense)

It's this low because it normally transposes into the Modern main line. The sidelines aren't that bad though.

8) 1...d5 (Scandinavian Defense)

It's not my preference but at least it does something.

7) 1...Nf6 (Alekhine Defense)

Slightly better than the Scandinavian in my opinion. Oftentimes white will get a big center, but black can counterattack it decently.

6) 1...b6 (Owen's Defense)

This probably belongs lower objectively, but it doesn't work terribly for me.

5) 1...Nc6 (Nimzowitch Defense)

I don't know much about this opening, but from what I do know it isn't too bad.

4) 1...c5 (Sicilian Defense)

It's down this low only because of personal preference. It's just as good as the top three.

3) 1...c6 (Caro-kann Defense)

A great first choice. Not much else to say, I just really like it.

2) 1...e6 (French Defense)

This was my first opening I played for black, and I still think it's a great first move.

1) 1...e5 (King's Pawn Opening)

This is my favorite way to play against 1.e4, but not because of the main line stuff with 2...Nc6 (if I were basing it on 2...Nc6 is would've been 4th place). I love the Petroff, the opening I've been most successful with of all of the openings I play frequently.

Not bad, you have the right reason for liking e5, Petroff's Defense, instead of following up with Nc6.

Modern is the main thing I disagree on, black has an equal percentage of wins as white at the master level with it, so it should not be at 10.

[No spam please - DB]

Equal percentage? Well, that surprises me.

It's likely that at my level I have opponents who don't defend against white's kingside attack correctly in the Modern, where masters will know how to correctly play it, so I may have gotten a wrong impression of it.

Then again, if every opening ranking is based on win percentage, 1.Na3 is the best first move for white...

A4 would be the highest for white but it has 34 games played under, Na3 has 23, and e4 g6 has 45,081 games which is enough to be data. And this line here (which has over 1000 games) does really well for black, despite White doing the most common move each time:

33% wins for white, 45% wins for black.

Look at this game:https://www.chess.com/games/view/16402269

h

[No spam please - DB]

[No spam please - DB]

j

Coming up next, ranking all the positions after black's second move!

There's only 71,852, I'm sure it won't take long.

Jeez, everyone really jumped on OP, huh?

hey its coz that list is weird

anyway

yerachmeal: 1..e5 you should be developing asymmetry as black!

also yerachmeal: the petrov is better than Nc6

i have no words

Report @The_Top_Hat for spamming please