Chess Codex
Tree path 10 levels King's Pawn Game › King's Knight Opening › Normal Variation › Ruy Lopez › Morphy Defense › Ruy Lopez: Morphy Defense › Ruy Lopez: Closed › Ruy Lopez: Closed › Ruy Lopez: Closed › Ruy Lopez: Marshall Attack
  1. Chess Codex
  2. King's Pawn Game C20
  3. King's Knight Opening C40
  4. Normal Variation C44
  5. Ruy Lopez C60
  6. Morphy Defense C70
  7. Ruy Lopez: Morphy Defense C78
  8. Ruy Lopez: Closed C84
  9. Ruy Lopez: Closed C88
  10. Ruy Lopez: Closed C88
  11. Ruy Lopez: Marshall Attack C89 you are here
C89

Ruy Lopez: Marshall Attack

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Overview

Ruy Lopez: Marshall Attack is a variation within the Open Games family, indexed as ECO C89.

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 16 plies of play, with the move sequence 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 a6 4. Ba4 Nf6 5. O-O Be7 6. Re1 b5 7. Bb3 O-O 8. c3 d5.

It is a variation of Ruy Lopez: Closed, which itself descends from the root opening King's Pawn Game.

It branches into 3 notable variations — Modern Variation, Original Marshall Attack, Steiner Variation.

In total, the branch covers 7 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
C89
Group
Open Games (C)
Plies
16
Parent
Ruy Lopez: Closed
Direct variations
3
Total in subtree
7

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

700,570 games · White 41.3% / Draw 5.4% / Black 53.3%

MovesGamesW / D / B
exd5624,450
d334,447
d430,314
h35,214
Bc22,695
Bxd51,564
a41,134
Qe2337

Source: Lichess Opening Explorer · cached 2026-09-26 03:11:40

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Variations (3)

Related variations at the same level

Sister lines that share the same parent Ruy Lopez: Closed:

Show all 7 sub-variations (full subtree)

https://chesscodex.org/openings/ruy-lopez-marshall-attack