Philidor Defense 2. Nf3 d6

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Overview

Philidor Defense is a variation within the Open Games family, indexed as ECO C41.

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 4 plies — specifically the moves 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 d6.

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

It branches into 2 notable variations — Philidor Defense, Philidor Defense.

Counted recursively, this branch covers 41 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: C41
Group: Open Games (C)
Plies: 4
Parent: King's Knight Opening
Direct variations: 2
Total in subtree: 41

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

53,166,523 games · White 51.7% / Draw 4.7% / Black 43.6%

Moves	Games	W / D / B
Bc4	22,698,616
d4	18,979,950
Nc3	4,319,515
h3	2,708,592
c3	2,114,439
Bb5+	747,032
d3	539,513
Be2	428,650

Source: Lichess Opening Explorer · cached 2026-09-26 01:02:28

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Variations (2)

Show all 41 sub-variations (full subtree)

Overview

Statistics from Lichess

Variations (2)

Related variations at the same level