How to Beat the London System
The London System (1.d4 d5 2.Bf4) has a reputation as a low-theory, hard-to-punish opening for White, and the data mostly backs that up: across the games this site tracked, White scores 52.3% at 1600-1800 from 4,003 games. That doesn’t mean every reply for Black is equally good.
What the data shows
Looking at the most common replies to 2.Bf4 in this position, here are the highest-scoring options for Black, ranked by actual result rather than popularity:
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| Move | Games | Played | Score for Black |
|---|---|---|---|
| c5 | 302 | 7.5% | 51.3% |
| Bf5 | 618 | 15.4% | 50.8% |
| e6 | 771 | 19.3% | 50.0% |
For comparison, the single most commonly played reply here is Nf6 (1,084 games). Popularity and score measure different things, which is exactly why this table is sorted by score rather than by frequency.
The best plan instead
No move at this band is both common and clearly low-scoring here - there is no obvious trap to warn about. Instead, here is what the data says actually works best:
c5 is Black’s highest-scoring reply on this exact table, at 51.3% from 302 games (played 7.5% of the time). That gap between popularity and result is the real, checkable answer this data can offer to “how to beat the London.”
See the full page
For the complete rating-band breakdown, model games, and recent club games in this line, see the London System opening page →.