Best Black Openings at 1400-1600, by Win Rate

Published 2026-08-22 · data refreshed 2026-08-22.

“Best opening for black at 1400-1600” gets asked constantly and answered mostly with opinion. This page answers a narrower, checkable version of the question: among the 7 black-side openings this site tracks, which ones actually score best for Black at 1400-1600, based on real Lichess games?

This is not a claim that these are the only good openings for Black at 1400-1600, or that a higher score here means “easier to learn” - it means players in this rating band who reached this exact position won more often with this piece configuration than with the others on this list. Style, how much you enjoy a position, and how much time you want to spend on theory all matter too, and none of those are measurable from a database.

Ranked by score at 1400-1600

Ranked by score among games between similarly-rated opponents (rating gap ≤50), with the all-games score shown alongside - this removes the biggest confound in a raw comparison like this (players who choose one opening are not the same players who choose another). Rows too close to call given their own sample sizes share a rank number.

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Black openings ranked by score at 1400-1600
#	Opening	Games	Score
1	Caro-Kann Defense	6.3K	50.4% (50.7% all games)
1	Sicilian Defense	10.5K	49.5% (49.8% all games)
1	Scandinavian Defense	7.9K	49.5% (49.7% all games)
1	French Defense	7.3K	49.4% (49.2% all games)
	King's Indian Defense	449	n/a
	Nimzo-Indian Defense	177	n/a
	Slav Defense	973	n/a

How this compares to White

At 1400-1600, Black’s top-scoring tracked opening is Caro-Kann Defense at 50.4%, versus Scotch Game at 54.5% for White. Scores for the two sides aren’t directly comparable (White and Black start from a different position and this site doesn’t track every possible opening for either side), so read this as “here is each side’s own best pick”, not a claim that one side has an edge.

Why a “score” isn’t the whole story

Score here means the standard chess scoring convention (a win counts 1, a draw counts 0.5) as a percentage, for Black, from real games at 1400-1600. A high score can partly reflect that a line is comfortable and hard to go wrong in, rather than that it’s objectively strongest - which matters more at some rating bands than others, since a beginner and a 2000+ player are not choosing an opening for the same reasons.

Go deeper

Every opening in the table above links to its own page with a full rating-band breakdown, common mistakes at this level, and real recent games. New to openings entirely? Start with best chess openings for beginners → (1400-1600, unsplit by side). See the full openings comparison → for all four rating bands and both sides at once, or jump between bands for Black: Black at 1600-1800 →. A guide on how these rankings shift as you move up through the rating bands is planned but not live on this site yet.