Scotch Game
1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 · you play white
3 chapters, 8 moves deep, get you to 91% of what you will actually meet. The other 1 covers the last 4%.
Course progress
0 of 39 decisions
0 still learning · 39 not asked yet
1 more chapter is below the depth for your level, together 4% of what you meet.
Drill this opening
Any chapter or study, asked cold — whether or not you owe it. Nothing here is unlocked by anything else.
At your level
Level
Improving
Depth
16 plies of this opening
Chapters
3
Decisions
39
0/39
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.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 exd4 4.Ng5 h6 5.Nxf7 Kxf7 6.Bc4+ Ke7
Qh5 — played 55% of the time here.
You score 40% after it, against 58% for everything else played from this position, over 321 games.
Instead:
c3
64%
O-O
60%
f4
49%
1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 exd4 4.Ng5 h6 5.Nxf7 Kxf7
Qh5+ — played 5% of the time here.
You score 33% after it, against 64% for everything else played from this position, over 106 games.
Instead:
Bc4+
64%
What your opponents fall for
— the 5 costliest of 11
1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 exd4 4.Ng5 h6 5.Nxf7 Kxf7 6.Bc4+
Ke8 — played 34% of the time here.
They score 2% after it, against 53% for everything else played from this position, over 620 games.
They should play:
Kg6
58%
d5
53%
Ke7
52%
1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 exd4 4.Ng5
h6 — played 30% of the time here.
They score 38% after it, against 50% for everything else played from this position, over 1,999 games.
They should play:
d5
62%
d6
56%
Bb4+
53%
1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 exd4 4.Nxd4 Bc5 5.Be3
Nf6 — played 4% of the time here.
They score 23% after it, against 46% for everything else played from this position, over 228 games.
They should play:
Qh4
53%
Qe7
50%
Ne5
50%
1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 exd4 4.Bc4 Bb4+ 5.c3 dxc3 6.bxc3
Be7 — played 15% of the time here.
They score 23% after it, against 48% for everything else played from this position, over 171 games.
They should play:
Bd6
55%
Ba5
49%
Bc5
45%
1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 exd4 4.Ng5 Be7 5.Nxf7 Kxf7 6.Bc4+
Ke8 — played 38% of the time here.
They score 35% after it, against 54% for everything else played from this position, over 205 games.
They should play:
d5
54%
Kf8
54%
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 89% of this course.