Closed · a plan for White
Queen's Gambit Declined: Queen's Knight Variation
5/5
1.d4d52.c4e63.Nc3
Live databaseLichess 1600–2000 · blitz + rapid
Queen's Gambit Declined: Queen's Knight Variation27.8M games · Black to move
MoveWhite / draw / BlackPlayedGamesScore
8.4%2.3M44%
5.7%1.6M42%
2.2%605k51%
0.9%248k46%
0.7%182k39%
Famous games in this line52k master games
Carlsen, M. (2855) – Kramnik, Vladimir (2812)Carlsen, M. (2853) – Nakamura, Hi (2814)Ding Liren (2805) – Carlsen, M. (2861)Ding Liren (2799) – Carlsen, M. (2864)Ding Liren (2799) – Carlsen, M. (2864)Carlsen, M. (2851) – Kramnik, Vladimir (2801)Carlsen, M. (2851) – Kramnik, Vladimir (2801)Carlsen, M. (2832) – So, W. (2815)Heroes of this opening Carlsen, M.
- Family
- Queen's Gambit
- Category
- Closed
- First move
- 1.d4
- ECO
- D31
- Line
- 1. d4 d5 2. c4 e6 3. Nc3
Classical
★ Read the guide: Queen's Gambit DeclinedExplore all 257 Queen's Gambit lines →Keep exploring
Go deeper — named lines from here
Tarrasch Defense3…c5 · 25 deeper linesQueen's Gambit Declined: Normal Defense3…Nf6 · 29 deeper linesSemi-Slav Defense: Accelerated Move Order3…c6 · 16 deeper linesQueen's Gambit Declined: Janowski Variation3…a6
Nearby lines in the family
From the archives
The Queen's Gambit appears in the Göttingen manuscript, written around 1500. It anchored world-championship matches for decades — 32 of the 34 games of Capablanca–Alekhine 1927 were Queen's Gambit Declined — and in 2020 a Netflix series watched by 62 million households emptied the world's chess-set shelves. It isn't even a real gambit: Black cannot safely keep the pawn.
Study this opening