JAMESSHAPIRO

Chess Openings by Nationality

How often do the French play the French?

Chess Jingoism and Cosmopolitanism

James Shapiro · August 31, 2026

Country Opening National World Ratio Players Games
France French          
Netherlands Dutch          
United Kingdom English          
United KingdomPlayers may list either the United Kingdom or Scotland on Chess.com, so Scotch appears for both. The United Kingdom rows here combine players listing the United Kingdom, England, Scotland, or Wales; the Scotland row is also included in that UK total. Explore's United Kingdom entry includes only players using the United Kingdom flag. Scotch          
United Kingdom London          
ScotlandPlayers may list either the United Kingdom or Scotland on Chess.com, so Scotch appears for both. The United Kingdom rows here combine players listing the United Kingdom, England, Scotland, or Wales; the Scotland row is also included in that UK total. Explore's United Kingdom entry includes only players using the United Kingdom flag. Scotch          
Italy Italian          
Italy Sicilian          
Spain Spanish          
India Indian          
ScandinaviaScandinaviaworldScandinaviaSwedenNorwayDenmark Scandi          
MonarchiesAndorraBahrainBelgiumBhutanBruneiCambodiaDenmarkEswatiniJapanJordanKuwaitLesothoLiechtensteinLuxembourgMalaysiaMonacoMoroccoNetherlandsNorwayOmanQatarSaudi ArabiaSpainSwedenThailandTongaUnited Arab EmiratesUnited KingdomKing's GambitQueen's Gambitworld K'sworld Q'sMonarchiesAndorraBahrainBelgiumBhutanBruneiCambodiaDenmarkEswatiniJapanJordanKuwaitLesothoLiechtensteinLuxembourgMalaysiaMonacoMoroccoNetherlandsNorwayOmanQatarSaudi ArabiaSpainSwedenThailandTongaUnited Arab EmiratesUnited Kingdom King's Gambit          
MonarchiesAndorraBahrainBelgiumBhutanBruneiCambodiaDenmarkEswatiniJapanJordanKuwaitLesothoLiechtensteinLuxembourgMalaysiaMonacoMoroccoNetherlandsNorwayOmanQatarSaudi ArabiaSpainSwedenThailandTongaUnited Arab EmiratesUnited KingdomKing's GambitQueen's Gambitworld K'sworld Q'sMonarchiesAndorraBahrainBelgiumBhutanBruneiCambodiaDenmarkEswatiniJapanJordanKuwaitLesothoLiechtensteinLuxembourgMalaysiaMonacoMoroccoNetherlandsNorwayOmanQatarSaudi ArabiaSpainSwedenThailandTongaUnited Arab EmiratesUnited Kingdom Queen's Gambit          
Germany Berlin          
Hungary Hungarian          

Last updated   ·   players ·   games

Methodology

To explore how often chess players play their national openings, an automated crawler continually scans Chess.com's 2026 games. Starting from randomly selected matches, it branches out to each player, their ten most recent opponents, and those opponents' ten most recent opponents. For all players in a sample, the crawler reviews their last hundred games to tally opening tendencies.

Each player carries equal weight in national and global averages and is never double-counted if encountered in a subsequent sample. An opening counts only for the player who chooses it: a player's French Defense percentage reflects how often they play it as Black. Games are categorized using the Lichess openings dataset to capture transpositions.

Because this crawler finds players through their opponents, it naturally samples active players more often than casual ones. Yet it avoids a distortion present in other reports like this one, which naively pool all games together.

That site-wide method answers the question: If you get matched against an opponent from France on Chess.com, how likely are they to play the French Defense against you?

My approach seeks to discover how often any given French player actually plays the French Defense. The results are reasonably consistent. As of September 14, 2026, we both find that the Dutch are the 20th most common player of the Dutch Defense, that South Koreans are the biggest partisans of the Italian, and that the French indeed favor the French.

The explore tool shows the top-10 countries for each opening, and the top-10 openings (in total and by likelihood ratio) for each country.

Explore

French 1.e4 e6

French · top 10 of countries · % of games as Black

    world n ≥ 30