Bishop's Opening

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Overview

Bishop's Opening is a variation within the Open Games family, indexed as ECO C23.

The Open Games group covers open games — classical 1.e4 e5 openings where both sides contest the centre directly with pawns.

Play reaches this position via 1. e4 e5 2. Bc4, after 3 plies of opening development.

It is a direct variation of King's Pawn Game.

It is the root of 8 named variations, with Anderssen Gambit, Berlin Defense, Boi Variation, and others among the most studied.

Below the direct variations, the full subtree contains 37 documented sub-variations.

Step through the moves on the interactive board below, review the live Lichess statistics, or play this position against Stockfish at one of six difficulty levels.

ECO code: C23
Group: Open Games (C)
Plies: 3
Parent: King's Pawn Game
Direct variations: 8
Total in subtree: 37

This overview is generated automatically from the opening's metadata. Know this line well? Write a description — submissions are reviewed before publishing.

Statistics from Lichess

52,714,825 games · White 50.3% / Draw 4.2% / Black 45.5%

Moves	Games	W / D / B
Nf6	17,929,542
Nc6	17,725,552
Bc5	6,616,693
d6	5,359,892
c6	1,464,479
Qf6	695,482
f5	564,301
h6	488,534

Source: Lichess Opening Explorer · cached 2026-09-26 00:54:43

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Variations (8)

Show all 37 sub-variations (full subtree)

Overview

Statistics from Lichess

Variations (8)

Related variations at the same level