Most underrated opening in chess as black.

Black is struggling in the Nimzowitsch Sicilian after 3.e5 Nd5 4.Nc3 e6 5.Ne4!

Neither 5...d6 6.exd6 Bxd6 7.Bb5+ Nc6 8.Bxc6+ bxc6 9.Nxd6+ Qxd6 10.0-0, nor 5...f5 6.Nc3! are pleasant for black.

The Alekhine is surely enough a better choice as long as Black does not mind solid but passive positions (resulting from either the 4 pawns, or the Exchange variation).

The opinion on the Owen's defense was pretty bad until GM Bauer gave us the first good book on it in the mid 2000's. Since then , more material has come out and figures like GM smirnov and Gothamchess have gone a long way in restoring its reputation. Its also a favorite of Naka for knocking out weaker players in rapid games.
Even now you still have old players repeating "its bad" while being completely outdated on the theory, but its respect has increased a lot compared to 30 years ago.

The Owen's defense never had a good reputation, and this still applies.

I don't know where you discovered these Naka games, but the one and only recorded rapid game with Naka playing Black is against Alex Lenderman, a few years ago. Naka lost.

You can be very aggressive in the Alekhine by killing the pawn center for example in the Four Pawns Variation,(1.e4 Nf6 2. e5 Nd5 3.c4 Nb6 4.d4 d6 5. f4 dxe5 6.fxe5 7. Nf3 Bg4 8. Be3 e6 9. Be2 Be7 10. 0-0 0-0 11. Nc3 f6) Now you have an open f file with good chances on the kingside after breaking up the white center.

then you are using a terrible database. They are dozens of naka games where he plays b6
and once again ,i have someone here to prove they will say its bad but discuss literally no theory on it.

the line you posted is terrible for black. He gets an isolani for no good reason. positions like these are sometimes justifiable for white if the speedy development compensates for the long term structural weakness. With Black? forget it.

What's your opinion on the Alekhine, darkunorthodox?

This form of analysis really misses the point of playing either a position like alekhines or the nimzowitsch. If we just look at the position and say: "well the opponent should just play this move and then that move, now you're in trouble, blahdiblah blah", by this logic you should not play either opening, you should be playing the Najdorf.

Here are some factors to consider when playing a dubious opening:

a) how common is the opening? How frequently does the difficult line occur within the opening? How likely is it that your opponent will know the refutation in depth?

This is relevant because, if you buckle down and study a difficult line 10 moves deep, assuming it has adequate complexity, it's going to equalize unless your opponent has prepared deeply.

So I think the odds are alot higher the opponent will know alekhines than nimzowitsch, and the statistics seem to suggest I'm correct.

b) how much complexity is there? The more the better, because complexity leads to human errors, and you can study the position in depth beforehand greatly mitigating the complexity.

In the position you've mentioned black has multiple ways of introducing complexity. For example, this line has been played like 5 times... to maintain a significant edge in this line white must play 8. b3 or 8. Qb3. Usually people play other moves here. But even if white plays correctly the line remains sharp for quite a while. Certainly black could drill this position -

c) how sharp is the line for you / your opponent? Does every move seem to lead to an advantage for the opponent, or no?

d) how is the line scoring in practice?

e) are there other forms of compensation - i.e. is the opponents king vulnerable? Are you down material?

So this is the kind of analysis that I would expect to do before making up my mind about a line. But in general I don't see these factors weighing in favor of alekhines over nimzowitsch. Alekhines is not really that surprising to people, it's a 1st move sideline, for comprehensiveness people study Alekhines along with everything else on the first move. Black also doesn't have too many options for how to diverge, and I'm not keen on playing a passive position that's worse, if I'm going to be worse then give me complications.

Almost all the lines here transpose with french exchange positions where white played c3 and black plays c5... I didn't realize that earlier but yes, it is basically just the french exchange here. Seems this entire alapin line just transposes into the french. Black has a 61% winrate in these positions in the exchange...

Infact c5 is the top scoring response for black in the main line of the exchange -

If white plays dxc5 anytime soon in that position black develops his bishop in one move and it's immediately better for black at -0.10... white does not even play that move here. White has to wait for quite some time, black will play Nbd7 and if Be7 dxc5 Nxc5 white has helped to develop blacks knight to a more active square than it usually finds in the exchange, the two knights have an uncontested outpost on e4... you can't really trade them off due to dxe4. Furthermore the pawn on c3 obstructs whites knight from developing. Black is fine here.

It's funny because I bought a chessable course a long time ago on the french from Anish Giri. He covered the exchange and I annotated some of his ideas in my chessbase database as I followed along. So in my database, in the main line in the exchange, after white plays c3... I literally have a note I had forgotten about: Anish recommends c5 here. Transposing into our position. I believe Anish described this as a reversed monte-carlo exchange, but he argued the tempo doesn't matter as much in the exchange, and due to c3 white is slower, justifying the isolated pawn. Anish Giri verbatim dispenses with your claim.

Overall the engine eval of this position is like +0.12. What can I say, it's an exchange french, it is perfectly fine for black... it's alot better for black than the Owens defense which is your main defense, so...

You seem to be just regurgitating what you perceive to be the common dogma and passing it off as your own critical thinking. The dogma against this position is not due to some objective problem, but related to the fact it transposes into the french and black intended on playing the sicilian... For some people playing 2 defenses is bothersome... the way I see it, french transpositions occur in so many different positions it's actually a powerful weapon against sidelines which can equalize your experience with the opponent. Better to just learn it as an off weapon. Like you can even transpose a blackmar-diemer right into the french, alot of people don't know that. Same with the Veresov... Equalizing the experience in the line... that factor alone would probably be enough to convince me to go with this.

• • While I most frequently play the Gruenfeld OTB, for the past several months I've been leaning into 1...c5 as a response to d4. The Old Benoni is an off-kilter flank pawn opening that typically instigates the traditional central pawn push to d5 whereafter Benko players get their favorite opening. However, the most common response does seem to change by ELO level.

    The main complaint players have about the opening is that forgoing Nf6 enables white to protect the pawn with their c3 knight instead of the cpawn, but the resultant position is pretty good for black and gives alot of play. At my rating, reaching the position above is nearly guaranteed.

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The Alekhine is not a passive opening in the slightest. You can be very aggressive attacking the center. Also, variations like the Four Pawn, the Modern, the Lasker, or the Exchange is perfectly playable for Black in their own ways, and if White has not studied the Alekhine for 10 moves of theory, it gets tricky to maintain the center with all the pressure. If anything, White is passive trying to defend their center as Black attacks it. The Alekhine also scores as well as the French defense for Black as well, so it even scores as well as one of the most popular defense out there. As only the 8th most popular response to 1.e4, it's the most underrated opening out there(Maybe the Scandi can compete though)

You should play the Benko Gambit after c4. I heard it's really good(I don't know though, I don't play c5 against 1.d4, I'm a Nf6 guy.

Yes! The Benko is my personal favorite gambit and most often yields a wild game with chances for both sides. My experience is that very few d4 players know the most common motifs and plans in either the Benko or old Benoni, which makes it a very dangerous weapon in shorter time controls.

i've observed that 1...c5 encourages the opening moves that lead to the Benko more frequently then 1...nf6 where the white player has a glut of different openings they could play.

What's even the main idea of the Benko and Benoni? I'm curious. I've heard it's good but I like the Budapest Gambit(Maybe the most underrated opening against 1.d4?)

The main idea of the Benko is to encourage an overextension of the central d5 pawn and to play on the a and b files. In most master level games where the full gambit is accepted, you will see the black rooks take control of the semi open files. it gives black huge activity for the cost of a flank pawn and some central control.

Black must then strive to control the e5 square because a well-timed pawn break can annihilate black's center.

The Alekhine is better than the Nimzowitsch Silician. It just is. Alekhine did not win 14 world chess championships using the Nimzo-Silician, he used the Alekhine defense. You can be world champion using the Alekhine's, not the Nimzo-Silician.

Nimzowitsch was a good player as well, I don't see the point of your statement... I'm not aware of alekhine ever rejecting the nimzowitsch defense, but even if he had I wouldn't rely on the state of opening theory in the 1920s as some random player saw it then to determine my opinion. There's really not alot to respond to in your post, "it just is better" is not a rational statement, it's more like... an emotional expression. You are free to play the alekhines all you like, you obviously really love the opening, you even named yourself after it. But when it comes to rationalizing that feeling - no, you have not even begun doing that.

why would you GIVE white the privilege of an isolani for no good reason? Like what exactly is black hoping for here? Black is ok, the position is sufficiently rich that a game still happens but i sure as heck woudnt adopt a defense that just gives such a potential weakness by move 3.

this does not look fun for black. Black can hang on but he is basically trying to draw. White has all the initiative and the structural advantage. 
besides, ask yourself, is this the kind of position your average french player is looking for?

a fully respectable secondary defense. It doesnt have quite the richness that the big 4 do but no one said you should only play 1 defense with black.

its a testament to its soundness that the modern remedy for the alekhine is to trade the e pawn fairly early and focus on the "meeker" space advantage.

What the french player hopes for are complications in an otherwise extremely dry french exchange... complications which always benefit the player who is prepared. In the mainline french exchange c5 (the move Anish Giri recommends) is performing better than every other move for black... this is at 2200+ elo in rapid... it's the same IQP position. All the lines have the same pawn structure... the engine thinks the position is like +0.12... you are basically arguing that a transposition into the highest winning line in the french exchange is unplayable for black, it is an absurd argument... and the data just does not support your belief.

Now, what the sicilian player hopes for is to undermine his opponents specialized alapin knowledge by bringing white into his off weapon against 1. e4. In this case black actually is the one choosing enter these exchange lines, white most likely isn't playing the exchange against the french... so this is good for black on that level as well.

Your post is a great example for why we should always distrust pie-in-the-sky theorizing about chess, these abstract statements people make about "the french bishop" or "the QGA loses a tempo", "with the IQP black will be clinging to a draw", etc.. just desperate attempts to cling to reason amidst a sea of confusion. To analyze a position you must account for many factors.

Well I just explained the benefits of the position for black, that's what you just quoted. Again, the IQP is justified by c3 slowing the development of whites knight, combined with the superior position of blacks knight on c5 / the e4 outpost. The exchange pawn structure is very slow and cramping, even after Nbd2 white doesn't have many great places to move his knight... minor advantages in piece activity often end up determining games in the exchange.

As far as IQP positions go this position is fine, infact its objective eval is better than the tarrasch... Some people like IQP positions, some don't - anything you play as black is going to make some concession, your argument may as well be "IQP positions bad!"... that's not the consensus amongst chess theorists or top players in general... whether an IQP position is good depends much more on context... here white is slow and has difficulty developing, no pieces have been traded, we already have a nice outpost for our knights... there is really no problem here as far as IQP positions go.