Tree path 6 levels King's Pawn Game › King's Knight Opening › Normal Variation › Ruy Lopez › Steinitz Defense › Ruy Lopez: Steinitz Defense
- Chess Codex
- King's Pawn Game C20
- King's Knight Opening C40
- Normal Variation C44
- Ruy Lopez C60
- Steinitz Defense C62
- Ruy Lopez: Steinitz Defense C62 you are here
Ruy Lopez: Steinitz Defense
Overview
Ruy Lopez: Steinitz Defense is a variation within the Open Games family, indexed as ECO C62.
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. Bb5 d6 4. d4.
It is a variation of Ruy Lopez: Steinitz Defense, which itself descends from the root opening King's Pawn Game.
It branches into 4 notable variations — Ruy Lopez: Berlin Defense, Tarrasch Trap, Center Gambit, Nimzowitsch Attack, and others.
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
- C62
- Group
- Open Games (C)
- Plies
- 7
- Parent
- Ruy Lopez: Steinitz Defense
- Direct variations
- 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
4,049,087 games · White 55.3% / Draw 5.4% / Black 39.3%
| Moves | Games | W / D / B |
|---|---|---|
| exd4 | 2,151,341 | |
| Bd7 | 1,158,255 | |
| a6 | 429,259 | |
| Bg4 | 207,313 | |
| f6 | 27,557 | |
| Nf6 | 25,599 | |
| Ne7 | 14,162 | |
| f5 | 7,848 |
Source: Lichess Opening Explorer · cached 2026-09-26 01:40:40
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