Tree path 3 levels King's Pawn Game › Bishop's Opening › Philidor Counterattack
  1. Chess Codex
  2. King's Pawn Game C20
  3. Bishop's Opening C23
  4. Philidor Counterattack C23 you are here
C23

Bishop's Opening: Philidor Counterattack

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Overview

Bishop's Opening: Philidor Counterattack 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.

It is reached after 4 plies of play, with the move sequence 1. e4 e5 2. Bc4 c6.

It is a variation of Bishop's Opening, which itself descends from the root opening King's Pawn Game.

It continues primarily into one named line, Bishop's Opening: Lisitsyn Variation.

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
4
Parent
Bishop's Opening
Direct variations
1

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

1,487,641 games · White 49.9% / Draw 3.9% / Black 46.2%

MovesGamesW / D / B
Nf3418,535
Nc3298,150
d3200,321
Qh5123,454
Qf3105,070
d476,526
a365,374
c364,245

Source: Lichess Opening Explorer · cached 2026-09-26 01:01:24

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Variations (1)