Opening guide
Scotch Game (C44) — win rates at club level
1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4, playing as white — data from 20,926,091 Lichess blitz & rapid games at 1600-1800.
The position
♜♝♛♚♝♞♜♟♟♟♟♟♟♟♞♟♟♟♞♟♟♟♟♟♟♜♞♝♛♚♝♜
How it scores at your rating
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| Rating band | Games | White / draw / Black | Score for white |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1600-1800 | 20,926,091 | 53.1% / 4.4% / 42.5% | 55.3% |
| 1400-1600 | 21,605,190 | 53.6% / 4.1% / 42.4% | 55.6% |
| 1800-2000 | 14,345,081 | 52.3% / 4.9% / 42.8% | 54.7% |
| 2000+ | 7,756,164 | 50.5% / 6.1% / 43.4% | 53.5% |
What black actually plays next
Top replies at 1600-1800:
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| Move | Games | Played | Win / draw / loss |
|---|---|---|---|
| exd4 (Scotch Game) | 17,434,818 | 83.3% | 43.1% / 4.4% / 52.5% |
| d6 | 1,327,636 | 6.3% | 39.8% / 5.2% / 55.1% |
| Nf6 | 538,253 | 2.6% | 40.8% / 3.6% / 55.6% |
| Nxd4 (Scotch Game: Lolli Variation) | 335,232 | 1.6% | 39.3% / 4.9% / 55.8% |
| Bd6 | 262,626 | 1.3% | 42.3% / 3.8% / 54.0% |
| d5 | 250,889 | 1.2% | 40.3% / 4.7% / 55.0% |
Common mistakes at 1600-1800
- d6 is played in 6.3% of games here but scores only 42.4% for black. After d6, dxe5 is the most common answer and scores 59.0% for white.
- Nf6 is played in 2.6% of games here but scores only 42.6% for black.
Model games
Real games from the Lichess masters database.
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| White | Black | Result | Year | Game |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Carlsen, M. (2881) | Nakamura, Hi (2775) | ½-½ | 2014 | View game |
| Vachier Lagrave, M. (2768) | Carlsen, M. (2877) | ½-½ | 2014 | View game |
| So, W. (2810) | Carlsen, M. (2822) | 0-1 | 2017 | View game |
| Carlsen, Magnus (2814) | Aronian, Levon (2805) | ½-½ | 2011 | View game |
| Radjabov, Teimour (2784) | Carlsen, Magnus (2835) | 0-1 | 2012 | View game |
Recent club games in this line
Recent rated games at 1600-1800 — not model games, just what actually happens at that rating.
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| White | Black | Result | Year | Game |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Elkinto1101 (1825) | Gibranpaspi (1636) | 1-0 | 2026 | View game |
| lawyer-adnan (1728) | mohsin13 (1724) | 0-1 | 2026 | View game |
| Abdallah-a-nader (1595) | shortvskasparov (1635) | 0-1 | 2026 | View game |
| GreyGoose-1 (1802) | jorg12341 (1749) | 0-1 | 2026 | View game |
Build a repertoire from here
See the full move tree for players in your rating band: 1600-1800 repertoire explorer (white) →