With the full realization that there is no meaningful difference in goodness among the best opening moves, that players well-versed in unorthodoxy are apt to play great wtih "lesser" moves, and that all openings are playable in amateur competition, I thought I'd entertain myself and hopefully one or two of you with my rankings.  Feel free to chime in with disagreements or amendments...

1. The King's Pawn Opening (e4) - Pros: occupies the center, frees up a lane for the kingside bishop, allows for quicker castling. Cons: the e-pawn is needier than many others with no immediate back-row guard.

2. The Queen's Pawn Opening (d4) - Pros: achieves the same as e-4, but with natural Queen protection.  Cons: None (actually more popular than e-4 with many masters), but castling more difficult than with e-4.

3. The Reti Opening (Nf3) - Pros: develops a back-row piece, stakes an indirect claim on the center.  Cons: None, but the two central pawn openings arguably achieve more on the first move with both central occupation and back-row semi-development.

4. The English Opening (c4) - Pros: Indirectly claims space in the center; very flexible in the possible continuations.  Cons: Achieves nothing immediate in the way of back-row development. 

5. Nimzowitsch-Larsen Attack (b3) - Pros: Prepares to develop a back-row piece to a deceptively good location with Bb3, provides support for a potentially healthy pawn structure later on, allows a sound game against opponents booked up in more popular lines. Cons: Nothing in the way of a central claim, allows black great flexibility in choice of play.

6. Benko's Opening (g3) - Pros: Similar to b3, but the pawn implications aren't as positive.  Cons: similar to b3, plus if white wants to castle kingside later, the pawn support provided by g3 isn't so hot, since f4 is suboptimal.

7. Bird's Opening (f4) - Pros: Stakes an indirect claim in the center, supports aggressive early play by white, allows for sound progress against more traditionally booked-up opponents.  Cons: Weakens kingside pawn protection, does nothing to develop back-row.

8. Dunst's Opening (Nc3) - Pros: Develops a back-row piece.  Cons: Stakes no claim in the center as d5 remains perfectly playable, allows black complete freedom of movement.

9. Van't Kruij's Opening (e3) - Pros: Openings up development for the kingside bishop, provides extra support for d4.  Cons: Blocks off development for the queenside bishop, allows black complete freedom.

10. Mieses Opening (d3) - Pros: Same as e3 but reversed.  Cons: Same with additional factor that kingside castling is now a harder affair.

11. Anderssen's Opening (a3) - Pros: Does nothing to impede white's further development of pieces, can help support a future queenside pawn push, can be useful against opponents fond of black-square bishop attacks and against those not used to carrying the initiative as black so early.  Cons: Cedes tempo, achieves nothing of immediate, tangible value.

12. The Clemenz Opening (h3) - Pros: Same as a3.  Cons: Same as a3, and weakens kingside pawn fortress, albeit only very slightly.

13. The Saragossa Opening (c3) - Pros: Provides extra support for a d4 push.  Cons: Develops no back pieces and actually blocks off the queen's knight's natural development, cedes tempo to black.

14. Barnes' Opening (f3) - Pros: Supports e4.  Cons: Weakens kingside pawn defense for much less positional gain than f4, blocks off king's knight's natural development, cedes tempo to black.

15. The Ware Opening (a4) - Pros: None.  Cons: Achieves nothing (rook development easily thwarted by black).

16. The Sokolsky Opening (b4) - Pros: Opens up development for the queen's bishop, a bit trappy for the unwary opponent.  Cons: With e-5, black immeidately puts white on the defensive, foricng white to either cede material for at-best speculative positional gain or follow with another passive tempo-wasting move.

17. Grob's Attack (g4) - Pros: Same as Sokolsky, for king's bishop.  Cons: Same as b4, plus badly weakens kingside pawn structure.

18.  The Desprez Opening (h4) - Pros: None.  Cons: Badly weakens kingside pawn structure for no reason, develops nothing.

19. The Sodium Attack (Na3) - Pros: None.  Cons: In effect, an early decommission of an important opening piece.  The knight can be moved again to a better spot, but probably no better than c3, and, if this was the plan, maybe it would be better to just ask the opponent beforehand if he'd mind you skipping the first move.

20. The Ammonia Attack (Nh3) - Pros: None.  Cons: All the same as Na3, plus the king's knight is arguably of slightly more potential importance in the opening than the queen's since the e-pawn needs extra protection in ways the d-pawn doesn't.

The Sokolsky is FAR better than 16th. It's better than anything over 8 in your list, IMO.

• Passive aggresive post

• Mention of e4 or d4 being better than the other

• 7 posts only

Flame Bait

Don't feed the trolls.

Interesting, but I would not put the Sokolsky and the Grob in the same basket. Could you add the % also?

Not intended as flame bait, just entertaining myself plus hoping for some amendments in the way of rooperi's.  I've generally fared well against Sokolsky, both when taking the pawn and not, albeit against opponents of my same low-amateur abilities, so I assumed there was something to the seeming theoretical badness of it, but this isn't the first time I've heard its virtues unironically trumpeted, and now I'm sort of interested in checking it out further.  

Tartakower said: It holds a place of honour amongst the so-called 'freak' openings...

If Tarta said that, then...

You've got g3 and b3 ranked backwards. g3 has always been considered of the "top acceptable five moves" according to just about any chess book you read on the subject. This is because white can transpose into just about any major queen pawn (involving a kingside fianchetto) or english opening no matter what black tries. b3, on the other hand, is more limited in this respect.

By the database I usually use (Chess365), the percentages by success are actually kind of funny...

1. The Sodium Attack (!!): 42.3**

2. King's Pawn: 38.8

3. Dunst's: 38.5*

4. Queen's Pawn: 38.4

5. Benko's: 38

6. English: 37.6

7. Grob's (!): 37.5**

8. Reti: 37.3

9. Anderssen's: 36.6*

10. Nizowitsch-Larsen: 36.2*

11. Bird's 35.5

12. Desprez: 34.9**

13. Saragossa: 34**

14. Sokolsky: 33.3*

15. Van't Kruij's: 33*

16. Mieses: 33 (but with more black wins)*

17. Clemenz: 31**

18. Ware: 30.4**

19. Barnes': 30.1**

20. Ammonia: 25.5**

*: Less than 1% as popular as e4

**: Less than 1000 games in database.

Obviously, there's  a factor here of strong players being cheeky because they can, but the evidence is also suggestive that I was overly harsh on the Sokolsky.

Interesting and good to know.  I've always wondered why Benko's, which I rarely play, is more popular than N-L, which I like fairly well. 

There are many reasons to play an inferior openings. I have played the Saragossa against masters to 1) take them out of their book; 2) play defense from the start; and 3) toy with them psychologically by making them wonder if they are playing an idiot and making them feel they ought to win by a crush.

I beat the prominent master Jude Acers with this opening in a 1-hour-per-side game and drew another master with it in a tournament game.

theoretcially, and suprisingly, throughout history b4 has scored well as the birds (f4)

i like this thread and insanity defence's 1st post.

i have a huge losing streak on this site leading me to belive i suck at chess despite how long i've played it.

i had to go back to basic training and start again, so i searched or the very 1st move. this thread was very insightfull to me.

i, having observed THE chessmaster for a long time and testing d4 VS e4 concluded that d4 is indeed better according to the outcome of my training matches VS the silly to easy computer.(800-1200~,i respect chess AI's alot.)

after that i tried the old control the middle with pawns scheme.

i would have liked to evolved my own stlye,but i was just too weak so i researched. an old opening i used to use which seemed to work very well was :

either e4,d3 or d4,e3 i can't remember which, but i'd bet it was the first one.

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i mean this diagram looks closer as i may have been preventing diagonal access to the king.

e4,d3 or d4,e3 open that access.

1.Na3 and 1.Nh3 develop a piece and weaken nothing; surely they must be better than kingside-wrecking moves like 1.g4 and 1.h4?

It depends entirely on the position

Somebody's gonna say it.....

Take a look at this: "More recently, IM Hans Berliner, a former World Champion of Correspondence Chess, claimed in his 1999 book The System that 1.d4 gives White a large, and possibly decisive, advantage. Berliner asserted that with best play White wins against the Grünfeld Defense, the Modern Benoni, the Benko Gambit and other (unnamed) "major defences", and achieves at least a large advantage in many lines of the Queen's Gambit Declined.^[77] However, he allowed that, "It is possible that the rules of chess are such that only some number of plausible-appearing defences to 1.d4 can be refuted."^[78] Berliner wrote that Adams' "theories, though looked upon with scorn by most top chess players, made an immediate and lasting impression on me. Weaver W. Adams was the first person I met who actually had theories about how chess should be played."^[71]

Berliner's thesis, like Adams', has been sharply criticized.^[79][80][81] IM Jeremy Silman wrote, "the sheer insanity of [Berliner's] claims made me laugh out loud on several occasions ... . My gripe is his lack of perspective, his iron conviction concerning his own deep understanding of chess, and the ease with which he dismisses the ideas and assessments of players who dwarf him ... in all things related to chess."^[82]"

It's taken from .d4

I don't believe for a moment that Na3 and Nh3 is that bad. It simply facilitates Nc4/Nf4 or you can play Nc7/c2. In other words it's just a Hippo or a variation of the Caro-Kann. (I don't recall the name, but the thingy with c6/d5/e5/f6 and Nf7. Bit odd, but solid. -> I recall it now, is the Gurgenidze of the Caro-Kann :P

The Bird is also not a ''bad'' opening. It's usually just a reversed Dutch, so how can it be that bad? I'm not saying it is much better than b3. That is just a developing move and leaves it all open.

Positionally, a4 and h4 are the worst you can think of. It weakens the b3/g3 square for no reason at all. f3 is difficult. It can transpose or you can play Nh3/f2 again. Again, odd, but somewhat playable. 

 g4 is really not that bad, if you castle queen side of course.

Also all those edge pawn moves should be a bit further down. They're not ''bad'' but accomplish nothing either. The e4 and d4 is a judgment call indeed. Technically there is no difference.

Perhaps it was a funny reference to a evergreen bishop vs. knight, and which is better.