The best chess openings for Black

White scores about 52% online and 54-55% in master games, so Black starts a little behind. An opening where Black scores 48% is normal. One at 49.5-50% is beating the odds.

All figures here come from every rated Lichess game from September 2023 to August 2026, as compiled by TrueElo. "Score" counts a win as 1 point and a draw as half a point, from Black's side.

You need one answer to each main White first move. These are the best-scoring popular choices for each.

Most Black openings score better at lower ratings, where White makes more mistakes. The Caro-Kann scores 52.1% under 1000 and 50.6% from 1000 to 1399, then falls to 44.6% at 2500+. The Sicilian follows the same path, from 51.9% under 1000 to 44.9% at 2500+.

A few go the other way. The Grünfeld does best for Black in the 1600-1999 range (50.9%), where players know its ideas but White has not yet learned the best setups. The Queen's Gambit Accepted is the weakest common reply to 1.d4 at 45.0%, but it improves to 48.2% between 2200 and 2499.

Caro-Kann: 1.e4 c6 2.d4 d5. After 3.Nc3 dxe4 4.Nxe4 Bf5 (the Classical) your light-squared bishop gets out before you play ...e6. After 3.e5 (the Advance) play 3...Bf5 again, then ...e6 and ...c5 to attack White's centre.

French: 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5. Your plan is almost always to break White's centre with ...c5, and sometimes ...f6. The main replies are 3.Nc3 (meet it with 3...Bb4, the Winawer, or 3...Nf6), 3.Nd2 (the Tarrasch) and 3.e5 (the Advance).

King's Indian: 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 Bg7 4.e4 d6 5.Nf3 O-O 6.Be2 e5. Let White take the centre, then strike it with ...e5. If White closes it with d5, attack on the kingside with ...Nd7 or ...Ne8 and ...f5 while White attacks on the queenside.

Grünfeld: 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 d5. In the main Exchange line (4.cxd5 Nxd5 5.e4 Nxc3 6.bxc3 Bg7) White gets a big centre, and you attack it with ...c5, ...Nc6 and the bishop on g7.

Against 1.c4, 1...c6 aims for ...d5 with a Slav or Caro-Kann structure, so it fits naturally with the Caro-Kann against 1.e4.

For a solid, low-risk repertoire, play the Caro-Kann against 1.e4 and ...c6 setups against 1.c4. The pawn structures are similar, so your plans carry over. For a fighting repertoire, play the Sicilian against 1.e4 and the King's Indian against 1.d4. Both create unbalanced positions where the better player wins.

Avoid openings that only work as traps. They score well against people who fall for them and badly against everyone else.

These averages cover millions of strangers. AuditChess shows the same numbers for your own games. It is the best free tool for this job: it reads your full Chess.com or Lichess history, ranks every Black defence you play by score, and points out the lines that are costing you rating.