Tree path 6 levels King's Pawn Game › King's Knight Opening › Normal Variation › Italian Game › Giuoco Piano › Italian Game: Classical Variation
- Chess Codex
- King's Pawn Game C20
- King's Knight Opening C40
- Normal Variation C44
- Italian Game C50
- Giuoco Piano C50
- Italian Game: Classical Variation C53 you are here
Italian Game: Classical Variation
Overview
Italian Game: Classical Variation is a variation within the Open Games family, indexed as ECO C53.
The Open Games group covers open games — classical 1.e4 e5 openings where both sides contest the centre directly with pawns.
The line arises from 7 plies — specifically the moves 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Bc5 4. c3.
It is a variation of Italian Game: Giuoco Piano, which itself descends from the root opening King's Pawn Game.
It branches into 3 notable variations — Italian Game: Classical Variation, Closed Variation, La Bourdonnais Variation.
Counted recursively, this branch covers 36 sub-variations at 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
- C53
- Group
- Open Games (C)
- Plies
- 7
- Parent
- Italian Game: Giuoco Piano
- Direct variations
- 3
- Total in subtree
- 36
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
13,133,957 games · White 51.0% / Draw 4.5% / Black 44.5%
| Moves | Games | W / D / B |
|---|---|---|
| Nf6 | 7,493,168 | |
| d6 | 3,577,996 | |
| h6 | 575,342 | |
| a6 | 343,154 | |
| Qf6 | 320,250 | |
| Nge7 | 246,114 | |
| Bb6 | 218,679 | |
| Qe7 | 164,641 |
Source: Lichess Opening Explorer · cached 2026-09-26 01:40:29
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Variations (3)
Show all 36 sub-variations (full subtree)
- C54 Italian Game: Classical Variation 8-ply
- C53 Closed Variation 8-ply
- C53 La Bourdonnais Variation 12-ply
- C53 Italian Game: Bird's Attack 9-ply
- C54 Center Attack 9-ply
- C53 Italian Game: Classical Variation, Center Holding Variation 10-ply
- C54 Giuoco Pianissimo 9-ply
- C53 Italian Game: Classical Variation, Eisinger Variation 13-ply
- C54 Italian Game: Classical Variation, Giuoco Pianissimo 10-ply
- C54 with a6 10-ply
- C54 Italian Game: Classical Variation, Greco Gambit, Dubov Italian 11-ply
- C54 Italian Game: Classical Variation, Greco Gambit, Modern Line 11-ply
- C54 Italian Game: Classical Variation, Greco Gambit, Traditional Line 11-ply
- C53 Italian Game: Classical Variation, Mestel Variation 11-ply
- C53 Italian Game: Classical Variation, Tarrasch Variation 17-ply
- C54 Italian Game: Classical Variation, with d5 10-ply
- C56 Italian Game: Scotch Gambit, Walbrodt-Baird Gambit 11-ply
- C54 Italian Game: Classical Variation, Ghulam-Kassim Variation 17-ply
- C54 Italian Game: Classical Variation, Giuoco Pianissimo 13-ply
- C54 Albin Variation 11-ply
- C54 Main Line 17-ply
- C54 with a4 a5 14-ply
- C54 with a6 12-ply
- C54 Italian Game: Classical Variation, Greco Gambit, Modern Line 12-ply
- C54 Italian Game: Giuoco Piano, Cracow Variation 13-ply
- C54 Italian Game: Giuoco Piano, Greco's Attack 13-ply
- C54 Italian Game: Giuoco Piano, Krause Variation 23-ply
- C54 Italian Game: Classical Variation, Greco Gambit, Anderssen Variation 16-ply
- C54 Italian Game: Classical Variation, Greco Gambit, Greco Variation 16-ply
- C54 Italian Game: Classical Variation, Greco Gambit, Main Line 16-ply
- C54 Italian Game: Classical Variation, Greco Gambit, Moeller-Therkatz Attack 17-ply
- C54 Italian Game: Giuoco Piano, Aitken Variation 19-ply
- C54 Italian Game: Giuoco Piano, Bernstein Variation 20-ply
- C54 Italian Game: Giuoco Piano, Steinitz Variation 19-ply
- C54 Italian Game: Classical Variation, Greco Gambit, Moeller-Bayonet Attack 23-ply
- C54 Italian Game: Giuoco Piano, Therkatz-Herzog Variation 27-ply