Tree path 4 levels King's Pawn Game › King's Knight Opening › Petrov's Defense › Petrov's Defense
C42

Petrov's Defense

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Overview

Petrov's Defense is a variation within the Open Games family, indexed as ECO C42.

The Open Games group covers open games — classical 1.e4 e5 openings where both sides contest the centre directly with pawns.

Play reaches this position via 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nf6 3. Nxe5, after 5 plies of opening development.

It is a variation of Petrov's Defense, which itself descends from the root opening King's Pawn Game.

It branches into 3 notable variations — Petrov's Defense, Damiano Variation, Stafford Gambit.

Below the direct variations, the full subtree contains 33 documented sub-variations.

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
C42
Group
Open Games (C)
Plies
5
Parent
Petrov's Defense
Direct variations
3
Total in subtree
33

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.

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Variations (3)

Show all 33 sub-variations (full subtree)