King's Pawn Game: Tortoise Opening

1. e4 e5 2. Bd3

The King's Pawn Game: Tortoise Opening is a chess opening classified as ECO C20, reached after 1. e4 e5 2. Bd3. It is a line of the King's Pawn Game. Black is to move.

In 12.6 million rated Lichess games (blitz and slower), this position was reached 2,957 times by this move order. White won 43%, 4% were drawn and Black won 53%. The most popular continuation is 2… Nc6 (34% of games).

Engine evaluation: −0.10 (Stockfish, depth 43; best line 2… Nf6 3. Nc3 Bc5 4. Nf3 Nc6 5. h3)

ECO: C20
Moves: 3 plies
FEN: rnbqkbnr/pppp1ppp/8/4p3/4P3/3B4/PPPP1PPP/RNBQK1NR b KQkq - 1 2
PGN: 1. e4 e5 2. Bd3

Analyse with Stockfish · Board image (SVG) · Open on Lichess

Results by rating

Average rating	Games	White / draw / Black
0-1499	2,347	42%53%
1500-1999	606	46%50%
2000+	4	100%
All	2,957	43%53%

Most played moves

Move	Games	White / draw / Black
2… Nc6	995 (34%)	42%54%
2… Nf6	765 (26%)	43%53%
2… Bc5	377 (13%)	37%57%
2… d6	308 (10%)	49%46%
2… d5	132 (4%)	45%50%
2… Qf6	95 (3%)	41%56%
2… Bd6	42 (1%)	50%40%
2… f6	34 (1%)	44%53%

Master games

5 over-the-board games are classified under this line (White 0%, draw 0%, Black 100%). The strongest:

Mladen Matas (1908) – Hrvoje Susovic (1983) 0-1 · ch-Splitsko-Dalmatinske 2014 · 2014-03-15

Search all games of the King's Pawn Game: Tortoise Opening and its sub-variations

Highest-rated Lichess games

miver008 (2331) – maciwoda69 (2372) 0-1 · 2026-09-04 · 180 + 2s
YankeeDodson (2095) – Iboat (1991) 0-1 · 2026-09-07 · 180 + 0s
DiquemaArlindo (1838) – MestreInvencivel (2241) 0-1 · 2026-09-03 · 180 + 0s

Comes from

King's Pawn Game (1. e4 e5) 1. e4 e5

More King's Pawn Game lines (all)

Opening names and moves from the Lichess openings dataset; statistics from the Lichess open database, 2026-09 (CC0), sample of 12.6 million games, bots excluded; evaluations from Lichess cloud analysis (all CC0). Master games from The Week in Chess #920–#1664 by Mark Crowther, used with permission.