Caissa Codex
Tree path 2 levels King's Pawn Game › Center Game
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  2. King's Pawn Game C20
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C20

Center Game

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Overview

Center Game is a variation within the Open Games family, indexed as ECO C20.

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 3 plies of play, with the move sequence 1. e4 e5 2. d4.

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

It branches into 3 notable variations — Center Game Accepted, King's Pawn Game: Beyer Gambit, King's Pawn Game: Philidor Gambit.

In total, the branch covers 28 sub-variations across all depths.

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
C20
Group
Open Games (C)
Plies
3
Parent
King's Pawn Game
Direct variations
3
Total in subtree
28

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

31,572,364 games · White 53.0% / Draw 3.9% / Black 43.1%

MovesGamesW / D / B
exd424,267,674
Nc63,463,978
d61,512,803
Nf6755,790
d5487,127
f6258,721
Qf6170,378
f5141,563

Source: Lichess Opening Explorer · cached 2026-09-26 00:54:08

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Variations (3)

Related variations at the same level

Sister lines that share the same parent King's Pawn Game:

Show all 28 sub-variations (full subtree)

https://chesscodex.org/openings/center-game