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    How the most popular chess openings changed across 1.2 million master games, 1850 to 2026 [OC]
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    How the most popular chess openings changed across 1.2 million master games, 1850 to 2026 [OC]

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    1. rhiever on

      Source: Lumbra’s Gigabase OTB

      Tool: D3.js, drawn as a recursive stacked area chart (streamgraph) on a fixed 177-year axis.

    2. HarrMada on

      So strategies have actually become more diverse? That’s cool. It’s opposite from what I hear when I listen to people talking about professional chess.

    3. philatio11 on

      The interactive graph on the site is amazing. I love the bread crumb trail so you can go back and forth as you click in further to see other options.

      How did you decide what to call the openings before they branch? For example, as a fan of the Scotch, it continues to be called the King’s Pawn Game until Turn 5 when white makes the move 5. Nxd4 … but the data shows that 80-90% of players continue into Scotch in the modern era. Is the naming automated by algorithm or did you code the openings by hand?

    4. SharpEdgeBets on

      The recursive view is what makes this work for me — the first-move chart makes it look like openings diversified, but clicking into branches shows how much of that is just theory moving one ply later.