Top 5 best chess openings for Black according to their winrate

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Top 5 Black Chess Openings by Win Rate
Chess is a game of strategy where choosing the right opening can lead to favorable positions, increased chances of winning, or at least a solid middle game. Both White and Black have various opening systems that are considered the best due to their historical win rates and their frequent use by top grandmasters (GMs). In this post, we’ll look at the top 5 best win-rate openings for both White and Black, along with the top grandmasters who have mastered them.

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Top 5 Black Openings by Win Rate

Sicilian Defense (1.e4 c5)

Win Rate: ~46% for Black
Description: The Sicilian is the most popular and aggressive response to 1.e4. It leads to dynamic, unbalanced positions where Black aims for counterplay rather than equality.
Top Players:
Garry Kasparov: Known for his mastery of the Sicilian, particularly the Najdorf variation.
Bobby Fischer: Fischer frequently used the Sicilian Defense, particularly in his World Championship match against Boris Spassky.
French Defense (1.e4 e6)

Win Rate: ~45% for Black
Description: The French Defense is a solid, counter-attacking opening where Black allows White to build a pawn center, then attacks it with pawn breaks like c5 and f6.
Top Players:
Mikhail Botvinnik: The former World Champion often used the French to create solid positions.
Viktor Korchnoi: Known for his incredible tenacity, Korchnoi used the French Defense to great effect throughout his career.
Caro-Kann Defense (1.e4 c6)

Win Rate: ~44% for Black
Description: The Caro-Kann is a solid and flexible opening for Black that focuses on controlling the center and minimizing risks. Black aims for slow but steady counterplay.
Top Players:
Anatoly Karpov: Karpov’s defensive and positional style made the Caro-Kann one of his favorite defenses.
Magnus Carlsen: Carlsen occasionally employs the Caro-Kann when he wants a solid but imbalanced position. >>>continue on link >> https://tvlavin.blogspot.com/2024/09/top-5-black-chess-openings-by-win-rate.html

Caro kann all the way

It says top 5, but I see only 3.

Why yes that would be my first question.

The second question is why do we talk about such general openings such as Sicilian, which has hundreds of variants. Really telling us that 1. e4 c5 is successful is about as useful as telling us 1. e4 e5 is successful.

The third is why is this not discussed in relation to the strength of the players. More sophisticated openings such as the sicilian arent popular for lower ranked players for a reason. Without deeper understanding of the chess game 1. e4 e5 is just the better, easier to understand option overall.

I agree on all of that. However, even when I filter the Lichess database to just the lowest category (400) rating, the Sicilian is the third most popular response, ahead of both the French and especially the Caro-Kann. (The Scandinavian is 2nd.) It does become more popular as you rise through the rankings, though, and is the favorite among the masters.
Does it matter if a player is not well versed on the complexity of an opening when their opponent has the same issue? Not sure. But with lower rated players, I recommend against learning openings anyway and to just focus on opening principles.

best opening for black? Rousseau Gambit of course

The guy tried to copy a wikipedia page, and even that was too hard for him.

Hello