Best By Test (part eight)

GOING back to one of the tables in the first part of this series, it showed White's most successful move in modern chess, from the viewpoint of rating performance, is 1.d4.

Table Three: Opening Moves By Rating Performance
Move..........Rating Performance
1.d4.....................+26
1.e4.....................+20
1.c4.....................+14
1.Nf3...................+11
1.b4.....................+6
1.f4......................+4
1.b3.....................+2
1.Nc3...................-17
1.g3.....................-23

This table is based on 238,275 games played last year that appear in ChessBase's 2020 Mega database. Moves occurring less than 0.1% of the time have been excluded.

A score of +26 means players using that move performed on average at 26 points above their elo rating.

The first place of 1.d4 is by a convincing margin - you have to go down to the difference in performance between 1.b3 and 1.Nc3 to find a larger gap.

Here I want to look at what is behind 1.d4's success statistically.

Table 28: Black Replies To 1.d4 By Popularity
Move..........Number Of Times Played
1...Nf6..................44,201
1...d5....................23,149
1...e6......................3,517
1...f5.......................2,298
1...d6......................2,215
1...g6......................2,051
1...c5......................1,028
1...c6.........................256
1...b6.........................153
1...Nc6.......................142

In table 28, from which moves occurring less than 0.1% of the time have been excluded, the popularity of 1...Nf6 easily exceeds all other moves combined.

Table 29: Black Replies To 1.d4 By Percentage Score
Move......................Score
1...c5.......................51%
1...g6.......................50%
1...d6.......................49%
1...Nf6.....................48%
1...f5........................47%
1...e6........................45%
1...d5........................42%
1...b6........................40%
1...Nc6.....................39%
1...c6........................34%

None of the popular moves does well when it comes to scoring percentage, but now we can look at rating performance.

Table 30: Black Replies To 1.d4 By Rating Performance (tie broken by frequency of appearance)
Move.................Rating Performance
1...Nf6......................-21
1...d5........................-21
1...e6........................-32
1...c6........................-34
1...f5........................-40
1...c5........................-44
1...d6........................-45
1...g6........................-51
1...b6........................-59
1...Nc6......................-117

Table 30 has a much more conventional look to it, although it is quite a coincidence that the two most-popular moves should give an identical rating performance.