Tree path 4 levels French Defense › Normal Variation › French Defense › Advance Variation

C02

French Defense: Advance Variation

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Overview

French Defense: Advance Variation is a variation within the Open Games family, indexed as ECO C02.

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

It begins with 5 plies and takes 1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. e5 to reach the canonical position.

It is a variation of French Defense, which itself descends from the root opening French Defense.

It branches into 2 notable variations — French Defense: Advance Variation, Extended Bishop Swap.

Together the deeper variations number 21 across the full subtree.

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: C02
Group: Open Games (C)
Plies: 5
Parent: French Defense
Direct variations: 2
Total in subtree: 21

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

25,890,096 games · White 45.7% / Draw 4.5% / Black 49.8%

Moves	Games	W / D / B
c5	22,870,950
Nc6	692,645
Ne7	497,938
f6	342,052
a6	318,050
Bd7	240,745
c6	143,138
f5	139,659

Source: Lichess Opening Explorer · cached 2026-09-26 01:09:44

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Variations (2)

Show all 21 sub-variations (full subtree)

Overview

Statistics from Lichess

Variations (2)

Related variations at the same level