Tree path 5 levels French Defense › Normal Variation › French Defense › Paulsen Variation › French Defense: Rubinstein Variation
C10

French Defense: Rubinstein Variation

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Overview

French Defense: Rubinstein Variation is a variation within the Open Games family, indexed as ECO C10.

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

It begins with 6 plies and takes 1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. Nc3 dxe4 to reach the canonical position.

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

It branches into 4 notable variations — Blackburne Defense, Ellis Gambit, Fort Knox Variation, and others.

Together the deeper variations number 5 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
C10
Group
Open Games (C)
Plies
6
Parent
French Defense: Paulsen Variation
Direct variations
4
Total in subtree
5

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

4,452,429 games · White 50.7% / Draw 5.9% / Black 43.4%

MovesGamesW / D / B
Nxe43,968,138
f3413,975
Be316,043
Bf415,631
Bc414,569
d55,253
a34,943
Nge22,421

Source: Lichess Opening Explorer · cached 2026-09-26 01:22:54

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Variations (4)

Show all 5 sub-variations (full subtree)