How Many Chess Openings Are There In Total?

It depends on how you define openings. If you count all named variations and theoretical lines, up to say the first 15 moves, there's between 2,000 and 3,000. By the way, the chess.com may list some 120 on some page but their systems contain almost all of the known ones. I am still looking for a list that includes all of those.

The reason is that I'm working on an encyclopedia/chess atlas that contains the better half of the opening systems including all gambits. It will be published soon if all goes well.

Ok,thanks.Send me a copy,thanks.

@sewerboss, you might take a gander at eco.json

Too Many!

infinity

What a waste of time. Worry about the ones you play. Like in my case, the following is what I can wind up in as either White, Black, or both - outside of this, who cares?

Larsen's Opening

Sokolsky

English Opening

Trompowsky

Levitsky

French Defense

Modern Defense

Old Indian

Saemisch Kings Indian (via 1.d4 d6 2.e4 Nf6 3.f3 g6 4.c4 as White - 3...e5 leads to old Indian lines)

Dutch

Petroff

Kings gambit

Vienna

Three knights

Bishop's Opening

Bird's Opening

Kings Indian Attack

Grob

I have no reason to worry about garbage like how many lines of the Najdorf can you name? You won't find a Najdorf on my board at this point with me as either color.

I think in many ways there are hundreds, maybe even thousands of openings in a single repertoire, hear me out:

If we consider an opening to be a discrete entity that forms a different kind of game from other openings, then you can have many openings in the same named variation that bear almost no relation to each other and have to be played completely differently.

It's not just an arbitrary thing arbitrary how much depth we go down, there are definitely themes and characteristics of openings. But to say for instance that you played the Queen's Gambit is barely meaningful. There are sometimes moves in variations that can bring about completely different types of games.