King's Knight Opening: Normal Variation
C44 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6
White scores 53.2% here across 18,740 club games — but the 7.7% who answer Nc3 score 48.9%, 4 points worse.
What White actually plays here
Across 18,740 games from a Lichess-derived book of club play, White scores 53.2% in this position. These are the replies people choose, and how each one works out.
| Reply | Games | Share | White scores | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bc4 | 6,324 | 33.7% | 54.5% | holds up |
| Bb5 | 6,198 | 33.1% | 54.4% | holds up |
| d4 | 3,036 | 16.2% | 54.1% | holds up |
| Nc3 | 1,448 | 7.7% | 48.9% | below the line |
| c3 | 509 | 2.7% | 50.2% | below the line |
| d3 | 303 | 1.6% | 42.7% | below the line |
| a3 | 240 | 1.3% | 38.1% | below the line |
| b3 | 213 | 1.1% | 59.2% | holds up |
| c4 | 159 | 0.8% | 41.8% | below the line |
| Be2 | 107 | 0.6% | 40.2% | below the line |
| g3 | 92 | 0.5% | 52.7% | holds up |
| h3 | 83 | 0.4% | 44.6% | below the line |
"Below the line" means the reply scores at least three points worse than the position does overall. Replies played fewer than 25 times are left out: the sample is too small to read.
Is this costing you anything?
A table of averages cannot tell you whether you go wrong here — only your own games can. Opening Leak Lab reads your Chess.com or Lichess archive, finds the decisions you repeat, and checks each one against this book and a bundled Stockfish.