Polish Opening: Grigorian Variation
1. b4 Nc6
The Polish Opening: Grigorian Variation is a chess opening classified as ECO A00, reached after 1. b4 Nc6. It is a line of the Polish Opening. White is to move.
In 12.6 million rated Lichess games (blitz and slower), this position was reached 607 times by this move order. White won 53%, 4% were drawn and Black won 43%. The most popular continuation is 2. b5 (64% of games).
Engine evaluation: +0.28 (Stockfish, depth 43; best line 2. a3 e5 3. Bb2 a6 4. c4 Nf6)
- ECO
- A00
- Moves
- 2 plies
- FEN
r1bqkbnr/pppppppp/2n5/8/1P6/8/P1PPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 1 2- PGN
1. b4 Nc6
Analyse with Stockfish · Board image (SVG) · Open on Lichess
Results by rating
| Average rating | Games | White / draw / Black |
|---|---|---|
| 0-1499 | 357 | |
| 1500-1999 | 222 | |
| 2000+ | 28 | |
| All | 607 |
Most played moves
| Move | Games | White / draw / Black |
|---|---|---|
| 2. b5 | 388 (64%) | |
| 2. Bb2 | 96 (16%) | |
| 2. a3 | 57 (9%) | |
| 2. c3 | 28 (5%) | |
| 2. Ba3 | 10 (2%) | |
| 2. c4 | 7 (1%) | |
| 2. Nc3 | 6 (1%) | |
| 2. g4 | 4 (1%) |
Master games
8 over-the-board games are classified under this line (White 63%, draw -1%, Black 38%). The strongest:
- IM Alfonso Llorente Zaro (2433) – GM Vladimir Fedoseev (2690) 0-1 · Titled Tue 27th Feb Late · 2024-02-27
- IM Praveen Balakrishnan (2500) – GM Aleksandar Indjic (2607) 0-1 · Titled Tuesday 1st June · 2021-06-01
- IM Yuliia Osmak (2438) – GM Wei Ming Kevin Goh (2501) 0-1 · Titled Tuesday 16th June · 2020-06-16
- GM Gil Popilski (2443) – IM Aleksei Slavin (2364) 1-0 · Titled Tue 14th Feb Late · 2023-02-14
- Sherif Khater (2012) – IM Aleksei Slavin (2364) 1-0 · Titled Tue 9th Jan Late · 2024-01-09
Search all games of the Polish Opening: Grigorian Variation and its sub-variations
Highest-rated Lichess games
- Shefer_Aleksandr (2330) – CM Kingscrusher-YouTube (2376) 1-0 · 2026-09-04 · 180 + 2s
- kingsgame6 (2297) – andreypereponkin (2340) 1-0 · 2026-09-03 · 180 + 0s
- mattmachtmatt (2228) – reza678 (2329) 0-1 · 2026-09-04 · 180 + 2s
Comes from
Polish Opening 1. b4
More Polish Opening lines (all)
- Polish Opening: Baltic Defense A00
- Polish Opening: Birmingham Gambit A00
- Polish Opening: Bugayev Advance Variation A00
- Polish Opening: Bugayev Attack A00
- Polish Opening: Czech Defense A00
- Polish Opening: Dutch Defense A00
- Polish Opening: German Defense A00
- Polish Opening: Karniewski Variation A00
- Polish Opening: King's Indian Variation A00
- Polish Opening: King's Indian Variation, Schiffler Attack A00
- Polish Opening: King's Indian Variation, Sokolsky Attack A00
- Polish Opening: Myers Variation A00
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.