Tree path 7 levels King's Pawn Game › King's Knight Opening › Normal Variation › Ruy Lopez › Morphy Defense › Modern Steinitz Defense › Ruy Lopez: Morphy Defense, Modern Steinitz Defense
- Chess Codex
- King's Pawn Game C20
- King's Knight Opening C40
- Normal Variation C44
- Ruy Lopez C60
- Morphy Defense C70
- Modern Steinitz Defense C71
- Ruy Lopez: Morphy Defense, Modern Steinitz Defense C74 you are here
Ruy Lopez: Morphy Defense, Modern Steinitz Defense
Overview
Ruy Lopez: Morphy Defense, Modern Steinitz Defense is a variation within the Open Games family, indexed as ECO C74.
The Open Games group covers open games — classical 1.e4 e5 openings where both sides contest the centre directly with pawns.
It begins with 9 plies and takes 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 a6 4. Ba4 d6 5. c3 to reach the canonical position.
It is a variation of Ruy Lopez: Morphy Defense, Modern Steinitz Defense, which itself descends from the root opening King's Pawn Game.
It branches into 2 notable variations — Ruy Lopez: Morphy Defense, Modern Steinitz Defense, Siesta Variation.
Together the deeper variations number 4 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
- C74
- Group
- Open Games (C)
- Plies
- 9
- Direct variations
- 2
- Total in subtree
- 4
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
452,907 games · White 53.7% / Draw 4.7% / Black 41.5%
| Moves | Games | W / D / B |
|---|---|---|
| b5 | 133,567 | |
| Bd7 | 100,523 | |
| Nf6 | 91,218 | |
| Bg4 | 50,785 | |
| f5 | 38,810 | |
| Be7 | 10,221 | |
| Be6 | 6,036 | |
| h6 | 4,924 |
Source: Lichess Opening Explorer · cached 2026-09-26 02:07:20
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