Play c4 against the Indians

1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 · you play white

3 chapters, 8 moves deep, get you to 91% of what you will actually meet. The other 1 covers the last 3%.

I show you every line first. Then I ask, and I only teach the moves you miss.

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16 plies of this opening

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323 of 534

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How this goes wrong at your level

Counted from 4,500,000 games by players in your band. These are moves that get played often and then lose — no engine was asked for an opinion.

What you are most likely to fall for

1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e5 3.dxe5 Ng4 4.Nf3 Nc6

Bf4 — played 41% of the time here.

You score 41% after it, against 55% for everything else played from this position, over 345 games.

Instead:

Bg5

64%

63%

56%

1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e5 3.dxe5 Ng4 4.Nf3 Nc6 5.Bf4 Bb4+ 6.Nbd2 Qe7

a3 — played 47% of the time here.

You score 19% after it, against 46% for everything else played from this position, over 85 games.

Instead:

56%

1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e5 3.d5 Bc5

Bg5 — played 7% of the time here.

You score 32% after it, against 49% for everything else played from this position, over 134 games.

Instead:

Nf3

59%

Nc3

50%

49%

1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e5 3.dxe5 Ng4 4.Nf3 d6 5.exd6 Bxd6

h3 — played 26% of the time here.

You score 5% after it, against 48% for everything else played from this position, over 37 games.

Instead:

Nc3

47%

1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Bb4 4.a3 Bxc3+ 5.bxc3 c5

e3 — played 17% of the time here.

You score 24% after it, against 55% for everything else played from this position, over 41 games.

Instead:

Bg5

57%

Nf3

54%

51%

Found by testing 94,688 decisions in your band’s games and keeping only those where the drop in score is more than four standard errors below the alternatives. About 3.17 of these would be expected by chance alone.

Your moves are chosen by the engine and checked against 3,439,091 games (Lichess Elite (2500+ vs 2300+), 2024-12 → 2025-11); their replies are what people actually play. Evaluations from Lichess Stockfish evaluations (database.lichess.org) (CC0 1.0 Universal), covering 87% of this course.