Indian Defense: West Indian Defense
Overview
Indian Defense: West Indian Defense is one of the foundational chess openings, sitting at the root of an entire branch of theory under ECO code Indian Defenses in the E60 group.
The Indian Defenses group covers Indian defences — hypermodern lines where Black challenges the centre with pieces rather than pawns.
Play reaches this position via 1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 g6, after 4 plies of opening development.
It is the root of 8 named variations, with Indian Defense: Anti-Grünfeld, Advance Variation, Indian Defense: Anti-Grünfeld, Alekhine Variation, Indian Defense: Anti-Grünfeld, Basman-Williams Attack, and others among the most studied.
This is a deep theory tree with 123 total sub-variations across all depths — one of the larger branches in chess theory.
Step through the moves on the interactive board below, review the live Lichess statistics, or play this position against Stockfish at one of six difficulty levels.
- ECO code
- E60
- Group
- Indian Defenses (E)
- Plies
- 4
- Direct variations
- 8
- Total in subtree
- 123
This overview is generated automatically from the opening's metadata. A more detailed, human-written description is on the way — and you can speed it up by suggesting one yourself.
Statistics from Lichess
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Source: Lichess Opening Explorer · cached
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Variations (8)
- E60 Indian Defense: Anti-Grünfeld, Advance Variation
- E60 Indian Defense: Anti-Grünfeld, Alekhine Variation
- E60 Indian Defense: Anti-Grünfeld, Basman-Williams Attack
- E61 King's Indian Defense
- E60 King's Indian Defense: Fianchetto Variation
- E60 King's Indian Defense: Fianchetto Variation, Immediate Fianchetto
- E60 King's Indian Defense: Santasiere Variation
- E60 Queen's Pawn, Mengarini Attack
Show all 123 sub-variations (full subtree)
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