Current position
French Defense: Queen's Knight
1.e4 e6
The French Defense starts with 1.e4 e6 and is catalogued under ECO C00, in the open games & french half of the book. The catalog indexes 212 lines inside it, grouped into 170 named variations, and the position after those moves has 1 playable continuation to walk from here.
Root edges show how often each move is played around your Elo. Use the arrow on a position to reveal the next replies.
Current setup
Move ideas
Claims the center with a pawn and opens lines for the queen and king’s bishop.
Idea: Build quick development and make early castling possible.
Prepares ...d5 to challenge White’s center with a supported pawn.
Idea: Build a compact pawn chain, then attack its base with ...c5.
Develops the knight to c3, bringing it into the game.
Idea: Improve piece coordination and clear the back rank for castling and the rooks.
Waiting for Lichess game popularity.
Each line below is an indexed entry under French Defense. Open one to load it on the board and keep exploring from that position.
146 more named lines sit inside this family — the tree above walks all of them.
ECO groups openings by the structures they lead to, so these families tend to share plans with the French Defense.