English Opening

Named after Howard Staunton, the English champion who played it in his 1843 match against Saint-Amant. White controls d5 from the side and often plays a Sicilian with colours reversed.

It is reached after a single move: 1. c4.

Black is to move and has 20 legal moves. Over the next four moves — two for each side — the game can branch into 240,082 different games. Those games reach 86,084 different positions: most positions can be reached in more than one way, 2.8 on average.

The Lichess opening list names 211 further lines after this position, such as King's English Variation (1... e5) and Anglo-Indian Defense (1... Nf6).