Chess Statistics

Statistics can be a useful tool for learning about your success in chess with white and black and for determining your most successful openings. I decided to look at my last 50 games at letsplaychess.com and analyze my success with the use of statistics. For greater accuracy, it would be ideal to look at a greater number of games such as 100, but to do so would of course be more time-consuming. Nevertheless, I believe my last 50 games can provide valuable insight about my game.

In my last fifty games, I was white in 18 games and black in 32. In 36% of my games I played white and in 64% I played black. Because white has an advantage over black by going first, I expected my winning percentage for white to be better than for black.

I won 42 out of 50 games for a winning percentage of 84%. As white, I won 15 out of 18 games for a winning percentage of 83.3%. When I was black, I won 27 out of 32 games for a winning percentage of 84.4%. Surprisingly, my winning percentage as black was a little higher. However, this can be explained. I played more games as black than as white and I played opponents of different levels. Thus, the conditions were far from equal. These statistics do not necessarily indicate that I play better as black than as white.

In the 32 games that I played as black, my opponents played e4 in 30 games and d4 in only 2. The king's pawn opening e4 was played in 93.8% of my games and d4 was played in only 6.2% of them. The opening e4 proved to be far more popular than d4.

In my 18 games as white, I played e4 10 times, d4 7 times and Nf3 once. I played e4 in 55.6% of games, d4 in 38.9% and Nf3 in 5.6%. I played e4 the most often but not as often as my opponents.

When I opened with e4, I won 9 out of 10 games. With d4, I won five out of seven and with Nf3 I won one out of one. My winning percentage with e4 was 90%. With d4 it was 71.4% and with Nf3 it was 100%. These statistics appear to indicate that my most successful opening is Nf3 but since I only played one game with this opening these statistics are inconclusive. However, it appears that I may be more successful with e4 than with d4.

Statistics from my last 50 games are not necessarily indicative of my best openings nor my relative success as white and black. A larger number of games would be necessary to make a more accurate determination. Also, the conditions for white and black would need to be as equal as possible and the number of games the same for accurate comparison. Nevertheless, the statistics from my last 50 games show that I was a little more successful as black than as white and that my most successful opening was e4. These results may indicate that I need to play more creatively as white and can expect more success with e4 than d4.