Best chess openings for 1500 elo, and what your opponents play

From 1500 to 1800 on chess.com, the Scotch Game (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4) and the Vienna Game (1.e4 e5 2.Nc3) score best for White, at 54.1% and 54.0%. For Black it’s the French (1.e4 e6) against 1.e4 and the Benoni (1.d4 c5) against 1.d4. The edges are thinner than lower down, so the tables also show how often each line comes up. Worth knowing before you put hours into one.

Which openings score best at 1500?

Score counts a win as one point and a draw as half, from the side playing the opening. White averages 51.7% at this level and Black 48.3%. You’ll also see more draws, 4.1% of games against 3.4% under 800.

At 1500 the best openings beat the average by two or three points, which works out to two or three extra wins per hundred games. That’s worth having, but it won’t get you to 1800 by itself, so from the top of each table pick something you actually enjoy playing.

What should you play as White?

1.d4 scores 52.2% and 1.e4 51.2%. Only 28% of 1.e4 games go 1...e5 at this level, so your plan against the Sicilian and the French matters as much as your favourite line against 1...e5.

Time to drop the King’s Gambit. It scored well up to 1500, and here it’s under the White average, probably because most opponents now know how to handle it.

On the 1.d4 side, the Queen’s Gambit is played in four games in ten that go 1.d4 d5 and scores 53.4%. The London scores 52.4%.

What should you play as Black against 1.e4?

The French (1...e6) at 49.7%. The Caro-Kann, the Alekhine and the Nimzowitsch follow at 49.5%. The Sicilian, now the second most common answer, scores 49.0%, and 1...e5 itself scores 47.8%.

What should you play as Black against 1.d4?

The Benoni (1...c5) scores 49.9%, with the Englund and 1...d6 right behind. 1...Nf6 scores 48.3% and now comes up in almost one game in five. 1...d5 is still the most common answer, and it’s still the worst for Black, at 46.7%.

Which openings get more popular around 1500?

The Sicilian, by a distance. It’s 7% of replies to 1.e4 under 800 and 21% here. Against 1.d4, 1...Nf6 goes from 9% to 19%. With White, 1.c4 and 1.Nf3 together make up 7% of games, up from 4% under 800. So expect fewer cheap traps and more opponents who know their own opening.

Does the time control matter at 1500?

For a couple of lines. The Scotch climbs as the clock gets longer, from 52.7% in bullet to 55.8% in rapid. The Scandinavian goes the other way for Black, from 49.5% in blitz to 47.7% in rapid.

Where do these numbers come from?

From 1.7 million rated online games played in October 2026, taken from a public game database. Ratings were converted to chess.com equivalents with a published rating comparison, and a game only counts when both players were between 1500 and 1800. Games against computers and abandoned games were left out.

An opening’s score also reflects who plays it. Players who choose rarer lines are often a bit stronger than their rating, so treat differences under a point as noise. On chess.com you can check any line yourself in its games database, filtered by rating.

Edges this small are hard to feel over the board, so look at your own numbers. Chesslord’s insights show what each of your openings scores with White and with Black.