About Fewmoves

Fewmoves helps you learn chess openings starting from the moves your opponents actually play, not from a whole book. It is free and made by Lumen Lab.

Where the numbers come from

We downloaded the first part of the October 2026 rated games file that Lichess publishes and counted it ourselves. Only blitz, rapid and classical games are counted; bullet, ultrabullet and correspondence are left out. The first 12 moves (24 plies) of the remaining 17,395,175 games are grouped by position. Rating levels use the average of both players' ratings (under 1200, 1200–1599, 1600–1999, 2000 and up). Positions with fewer than 60 games and moves with fewer than 6 games are left out.

Lichess ratings usually run higher than Chess.com ratings for the same player. There is no exact conversion, so every rating on this site is a Lichess rating.

Opening names

Names and ECO codes come from the chess-openings list that Lichess publishes (3,865 entries, CC0).

How the guide lines are checked

Every main line, variation and trap in the guides is played move by move with a chess rules library (chess.js) each time the site is built. If any move is illegal, the build stops. Traps marked "ends in mate" are also checked to end in checkmate.

How practice picks moves

In practice, your moves follow the guide's main line, then the move players rated 2000+ chose most often in that position. Your opponent's moves are drawn from the replies played more than 5% of the time at the rating you picked, in their real proportions. Wrong answers and hints come back the same day; right answers come back after 1, 3, 7, 16, 35 and 90 days. Your progress stays in this browser only.

Limits

• The most played move is not always the best move. Win rates are results between players at that level, which can differ from an engine evaluation.
• This is the first part of one month of games, so very rare lines have no numbers.
• The guides are written explanations, not engine analysis. If you spot a mistake, write to contact@lumenlab.page.

Credits

• Games: Lichess game database (CC0)
• Opening names: lichess-org/chess-openings (CC0)
• Move rules: chess.js (BSD-2-Clause, license)
• Piece set: Cburnett, Wikimedia Commons (used under the BSD-3-Clause license)
• Font: Pretendard (SIL Open Font License 1.1)

Contact

Lumen Lab: contact@lumenlab.page