The Bongcloud: the worst opening in chess, played by the world's best
Short answer: no, the Bongcloud is not a good opening. After 1.e4 e5 2.Ke2 the engine rates the position as if Black were more than a pawn up. And at club level White scores about 33% with it. Even so, Hikaru Nakamura has played it many times, and Magnus Carlsen has played it too.
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d f g 1 h 2.Ke2 breaks almost every opening rule at once. The king walks towards the centre when it should be hiding. Castling is gone for good. The king stands in the way of the f1 bishop and the queen. And the move does nothing useful: no piece is developed, nobody fights for the centre.
A great move. If the goal is to make your opponent laugh.
Why is it called the Bongcloud?
Nobody knows for sure. There are two stories.
One says the name comes from a Chess.com user called Lenny_Bongcloud, who played it without much success. The other says it's a nod to a bong: you'd have to be a little out of your mind to take 2.Ke2 seriously.
Andrew Fabbro's joke "book" Winning with the Bongcloud made it even more famous.
Who plays it?
Hikaru Nakamura made the Bongcloud his trademark in online speed chess. At the 2018 Speed Chess Championship he played it three times against Levon Aronian in the bullet games: Aronian won the first two, Nakamura the third. In the final of the next championship he beat Wesley So with it, from a lost position. Later in 2020 he beat Jeffery Xiong at the online St. Louis Rapid & Blitz.
But the most famous game came on 15 March 2021. The last round of the preliminaries at the Magnus Carlsen Invitational, Carlsen with White against Nakamura. Both had already qualified, so there was nothing to play for.
Carlsen played 2.Ke2. Nakamura answered 2...Ke7.
8 7 2 a b c d f g 1 h The kings walked there and back, and after move six the same position came up for the third time. Draw. Nakamura later called it the first double Bongcloud in a major tournament.
What the games say
We looked at rated Lichess games (blitz, rapid and classical) where both players are rated around 1400, around 1600 or around 1800.
After 1.e4 e5, the move 2.Ke2 turns up in about one game in 16,000. But its results are very clear:
- after normal moves (2.Nf3, 2.Bc4, 2.Nc3) White scores about 52–53%;
- after 2.Ke2, about 33%.
(Scoring is simple: a win is one point, a draw is half.)
So with one move White swaps a small edge for a clear deficit. Among players rated 2100 and up there are so few games with 2.Ke2 that the percentages mean nothing.
So why do strong players play it?
Because they can afford to. When the gap in strength is big, a bad second move decides nothing: the stronger player will outplay the opponent later anyway. And for a streamer it's a show. People would much rather watch that than yet another Ruy Lopez.
For you it will most likely be different. Against an opponent of your own strength, a worse position and a king in the centre mean you'll lose more often than you win. That's exactly what the numbers above show.
If someone plays the Bongcloud against you
Don't rush to mate the king on e2. Just develop: Nf6, Nc6, d5, bishops out. The king in the centre isn't going anywhere, and once all your pieces are out, the lines will open by themselves.
The verdict
The Bongcloud is a joke, not an opening. Play it against a friend for a laugh. For rated games, pick something that actually scores at your level.
Not sure where to start? Here's how to study chess openings.
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