Owen's Defense is simply b6, which transposes to other defenses depending on how white replies and how black responds to white's subsequent moves. It's somewhat a flexible defense although you are pretty much dedicated to a fianchetto of the Bishop (although I have on occasion decline the fianchetto).
If you are not sure on the defense you should play or if you opponent always plays a certain way, it can throw them off to see b6 as a first move. It's not a good defense in itself though.
What's so bad about it? To me it seems pretty good.
Oh c'mon Richie, you've got to give the refutation of the trappiest line:
1.e4 b6 2.d4 Bb7 3.Bd3? f5!
Or so some people think.
And the line to refute it is...
What's so bad about it? To me it seems pretty good.
With the sequence of moves you made in your example, no it does not look bad. Although, who said that is how white will/should play. I know that I would not make most of those moves you have there as white.
I cannot believe you steal money from the street hustlers in blitz, they need cash like anyone!
Here's a look at the lines suggested with a short continuation
.First: 1. e4 b6 2. d4 Bb7 3. Bd3! Nf6 4. Nc3 e6 5. Nge2!
The position seems about equal for both sides.
As for: 1.e4 b6 2.d4 Bb7 3.Bd3? f5! 4. exf5 Bxg2? 5. Qh5! g6 6.fxg6 Bg7 7. gxh7+ I will admit that this variation is easily to white's advantage, but only works if black plays 3... f5?
Ok. So Bb4 is a bad move. Remember, I don't know this opening well yet.
If 5... d5 play seems about equal I think.
Benedictus, its time to stop arguing about why this opening is good. Its not good, its not bad but certainly allows white a good advantage. 5. ... d5 seems to be equal but white has a lead in development.
I really like owens defence. Since I dont have time to study other defences due to the amount there is on that defense (eg the sicilian which has about a million books ) I just study a simpler defense as black. when I was much younger I would play caro kann but I have not played in decades and even the caro kann has too much theory, now. So I settled for the unusual owens. I have had great success with it, because many seem to be thrown off by it so they are out of book real fast. I should say i have had great success with 1900 and below players. Anyone master and above I cant seem to beat with any opening unless they are on auto pilot and make a serious blunder.
Anyway I like the fact that not much material is readily available, so your opponent has to work to get info on the opening. I have gone through the book play b6 and I loved it, once you work through the games you will realize that while in theory black does not stand as well as with anohter opening, most players are not masters at least the ones I have played since I am just a club player/ borders star bucks player. So since most are not up on the opening they make a "bad" move and hence black has the advantage. It was easier to learn owens than to restudy all of the caro kann for me. And I have had a lot of success with it about a 90% win rate against 1900 and below. As white I play B4 and B3. But I like B4 a bit more.
So i guess it depends on what level of play you are at. I am not a professional and play for fun and find this defense very enjoyable and easy to learn, but I am not sure if its ay good if you are are really serious.
Isn't the ...Bb4 line in the Owen's defence just a bad French Winawer, because black has commited his other bishop to b7?
3. ...f5 is a blunder. One can even sac the exchange here and play exf5! and let black get his "trick" in.
4. exf5 Bxg2? 5. Qh5! g6 6.fxg6 Bg7 7. gxh7+ and Black is in serious deep poo.
This is not the refutation which was listed in Chess Life awhile back, but unfortunately the only move from that line that I recall is Nf3! at some point.
Yes, I play this already and I find that most opponents play 3.Bd3 instead of 3.Nc3. Certainly a sound opening.
I tried to develop a system against everything with 1. b3 or 1...b6 back around 1978. It came to an inglorious end. The Owens Defense just doesn't attack anything. White gets a free hand for a couple moves and plays 3. Bd3 (f3 even can be played, since Black has no way of exploiting anything) and has no problems unless he creates them himself. Black would do well to play e6 before trying anything too counterattacky. It's just slow.
Several inaccuraciesin this line but this was a correspondence game played between my sparring partner and a guy from Poland that shows the Owen Defense can be exploited in many different ways by White. THhe biggest divergence comes at move 9 when White plays Be2 rather than Bc2 and maintains the pawn chain rather than hit at Black with an early b3.
Apparently, my system is not letting me input the pgn file. If someone could cut and paste this for me, it would be much appreciated. Once it is posted, I will edit the post here to remove the pgn. It can be opened via Notepad easiest.
[Event "Army of Brotherhood Open Challenge - Board 12"]
[Site "Chess.com"]
[Date "2012.09.09"]
[White "vengence69"]
[Black "MarkQueen"]
[Result "1-0"]
[WhiteElo "1597"]
[BlackElo "1823"]
[TimeControl "1 in 3 days"]
[Termination "vengence69 won by resignation"]
1.e4 b6 2.d4 Bb7 3.Bd3 e6 4.c3 c5 5.Nf3 h6 6.Be3 Qc7 7.O-O d5 8.e5 c4 9.Be2 Ne7 10.Nbd2 Nd7
11.Rc1 Nf5 12.Kh1 g5 13.Bxg5 hxg5 14.Nxg5 Bh6 15.Ndf3 Bxg5 16.Nxg5 Ng7 17.f4 Nf8 18.g4 O-O-O 19.f5 exf5 20.gxf5 Nh7
21.Nxh7 Rxh7 22.Bg4 Kb8 23.Qc2 Rdh8 24.h3 Bc8 25.Rf2 Rh4 26.Rg1 Qd8 27.Rh2 Nh5 28.f6 Bxg4 29.Rxg4 Rxg4 30.hxg4 Ng3+
31.Kg2 Rxh2+ 32.Kxh2 Ne4 33.Qg2 Qh8+ 34.Qh3 Qxh3+ 35.Kxh3 Kc8 36.Kh4 b5 37.g5 Kd8 38.Kh5 Ke8 39.g6 fxg6+ 40.Kxg6 Kf8
41.Kf5 b4 42.e6 Nxc3 43.Kg6 Ne4 44.e7+ 1-0
Thanks in advance.
There you go PP it is in. Didn't know you liked spying on your sparring partners games? trying to gain an advantage again?
I'm interested in finding a good defense for black against 1. e4 and I like the Owen Defense. I think it gives black fairly good chances of getting an equal game.
Please leave your comments about what you think of this opening. Also, if someone knows the opening more thouroughly than I do, please let me know if some of the moves I made were incorrect. Also, if anyone has a suggestion for white, post it and I'll post a game using that variation.