Best By Test

ONE of world champion Bobby Fischer's most famous quotes is that 1.e4 is "best by test."
His view would likely have been supported by the great majority of 19th-century players.
But there have been times when 1.e4 has been out of favour, especially among the world's elite.
It was interesting to note in my Champion Repertoire series how the different world champions opened their games with the white pieces.
Fischer made his remark long before the advent of chess databases and engines.
It is pointless asking engines which is the best first move - their opening evaluations are very unsophisticated and there are just too many variables for them to come up with a useful verdict.
Databases, however, can give answers, at least from the viewpoints of popularity and statistical success.
So with the help of ChessBase's 2020 Mega database it is possible to discover what in modern chess is "best by test."
There are 238,275 games from 2019, which is the most-recent year available in Mega20.
In those games White scored 94,216 wins, 66,220 draws and 77,824 losses (+94,216=66,220-77,824). That is an overall score of 53%.
To make sure 2019 was not an exceptional year, I did the same search for the two years 2018-19 and the five years 2015-19. In both cases White scored 53%.
So it can be said with a reasonable degree of confidence that the 238,275 games from 2019 in Mega20 are a fair reflection of modern chess, at least in those events important enough to have their scores collected.
In those games the white players had an average rating of 2046 and scored a performance rating of 2057, ie +11.
Chess success can be measured statistically by percentage score and rating performance.
It is important to use both measures, even over a large sample such as 238,275, as percentage scores alone may be skewed by strong players being more likely on the white or black side of a particular opening variation.
There are 20 ways in which White can open a game (16 pawn moves and four knight moves), and all of them were played in 2019!
However some were played so infrequently (1.f3 occurs four times, 1.Na3 twice) that they can be excluded as statistically insignificant.
I decided that for a move to appear in table one below, it had to occur in at least 0.1% of games.

Table One: Openings By Popularity
Move.......Number of times played
1.e4......................114,450
1.d4........................79,279
1.Nf3.......................21,713
1.c4.........................16,456
1.b3..........................1,513
1.g3..........................1,323
1.f4...........................1,222
1.b4.............................425
1.Nc3..........................373

As can be seen, 1.e4 is by far the most-popular first move - it has many more appearances than the next two most-popular moves (1.d4 and 1.Nf3) combined.
Slightly surprising, at least to me, is how 1.Nf3 easily beats 1.c4 for third place. I suspect this is partly because 1.Nf3 is often used as a wait-and-see transpositional device that is considered more flexible than 1.c4.
The picture in table two, which shows White's opening moves by their percentage success, is very different.
Two fairly non-forcing kingside moves, 1.Nf3 and 1.g3, lead the way, with 1.e4 not doing all that much better, statistically speaking, than equality.
But at least 1.e4 does not give Black an edge, as 1.b4 appears to do with its score of 46%.

Table Two: Openings By Percentage Score (ties broken by frequency of appearance)
Move.........Score
1.Nf3..........57%
1.g3............57%
1.Nc3.........56%
1.c4............55%
1.d4............54%
1.e4............52%
1.b3............52%
1.f4.............50%
1.b4............46%

But, as I warned, it is dangerous to read percentage scores in isolation.
A very different picture emerges in table three, which lists White's opening moves according to how the players performed rating-wise.

Table Three: Openings 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

White's most-popular moves, 1.e4 and 1.d4, lead the way, although "best by test," contra Fischer, is 1.d4.
Note that with 1.c4 claiming third spot, it could be said that it is the most-active moves, in the sense of moves that restrict Black's replies, which come out on top.
And look how badly 1.Nc3 and 1.g3 do - a complete reversal of looking at those moves by percentage score alone.
As an early conclusion we can say 1.e4 performs very well, but why does it lag six percentage points behind 1.d4?
(To be continued)