Best Chess Openings for Beginners, by Win Rate
“Best opening for beginners” gets asked constantly and answered mostly with opinion. This page answers a narrower, checkable version of the question: among the 12 openings this site tracks, which ones actually score best for the side that plays them at 1400-1600, based on real Lichess games?
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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| # | Opening | Side | Games | Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Scotch Game | white | 3.7K | 54.7% (55.0% all games) |
| 1 | Ruy Lopez | white | 3.2K | 54.4% (54.7% all games) |
| 1 | Queen’s Gambit | white | 5.8K | 53.9% (53.9% all games) |
| 1 | London System | white | 4.2K | 53.4% (54.1% all games) |
| 1 | Italian Game | white | 7.4K | 52.2% (52.7% all games) |
| 6 | Caro-Kann Defense | black | 8.2K | 50.2% (50.4% all games) |
| 6 | French Defense | black | 9.4K | 49.9% (49.8% all games) |
| 6 | Scandinavian Defense | black | 10.0K | 49.8% (49.9% all games) |
| 6 | Sicilian Defense | black | 13.5K | 49.1% (49.4% all games) |
| 10 | Slav Defense | black | 1.2K | 45.5% (46.4% all games) |
| King’s Indian Defense | black | 582 | n/a | |
| Nimzo-Indian Defense | black | 211 | n/a |
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 the side whose opening this is, from real games at this rating band. 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 is arguably a better property for a beginner’s first opening than raw engine strength would be anyway.
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. See the full openings comparison → for all four rating bands side by side, or the side-specific breakdowns once you know which color you’re asking about: best White openings at 1400-1600 → and best Black openings at 1400-1600 →, each with links up through 1600-1800, 1800-2000, and 2000+.