Owen’s defense vs modern defense

The Modern is generally better-regarded, but Owen's is of interest. In both, there are several dangerous lines for White against which the second player must respond accurately or get swept off the board. Generally speaking, Owen's is best against 1. c4; when it is known as the "English Defence" having been championed by a group of UK players in the 1980s.

Owen's Defence is specifically 1. e4 b6.

The Modern is light years better than Owen's. It's a tricky opening to face. Owen's is absolutely hopeless imo. I can't think of anything I'd rather face as White.

I just looked up my Lichess stats and I am scoring 59% against Owen's. What's funny is, the response I score best against is 1...e5, where I play the Vienna with a 61% winrate. But this is in part because my opponents are sometimes dead lost out of the opening when they play into the Copycat Variation or the Vienna Gambit Accepted. There are no tricks and traps where people are dead lost in the Owen's, it is just bad. (If anyone is curious, out of the moves that are played at least 1% of the time, my third best record is against the Scandinavian, with 55%).

By contrast, 1...g6, the Modern, actually has a positive winrate against me, 52%. Like I said... it's tricky.

For clarity, I agree with @Strayaningen on terminology: 1. c4, b6 isn't really an "Owen" at all; at least not these days (the Rev. Owen might have thought differently in the 1800s). I guess my imprecise phrasing was down to trying to give a bigger 'spread' to options, but I do accept the correction.

You might as well call it the Queen's Fianchetto.

You can get a version of it from d4 Nf6 c4 e6 Nc3 Bb4 Qc2 b6?! e4! followed by Bd3 and Nge2. The early move ...c5 here should be met first by cxd5! exd5 and only then e5! in this setup.

Againsti 1 c4 b6, people may just respond 2 d4 Bb7 3 Nc3, and then how do you stop e4? If Nf6, then 4 Qc2! transposes back into that line if black plays ...e6, since ...Bb4 can't be played until 4...e6 is played. The only way to "stop" e4 is to play ...d5, which stops it for a total of one or two moves. But then white plays cxd5 Nxd5 Nf3 (or e4) and gets a big center anyway.

The main English Defense line with the legendary Rook sacrifice on h1 has been proven to be great for White, but he has to memorize a bunch of engine lines involving not taking the knight on g8 with the h7 pawn, but move orders involving Nge2 and long castling (but has to be done in the right move order, since you don't want to allow Bh1-f3 if there is a rook on d1, unless there is an unstoppable disaster on the g6 square.

Instead of Bxg2, the line where black recaptures exf5 gives white a less substantial lead than the greedy gun for the R on h1.

This is the key position which puts this entire variation under a cloud for black.

Then there will be different answers based on white's first move.

There are some cases where 1...g6 and 1...b6 are about equally good, or even 1...b6 is slightly better, but 1...g6 is objectively better in the majority of cases.

I personally am not a fan of the mainline Modern Defense at all. It just seems really passive to me, and it allows white large and often crushing kingside attacks. I've never played the Modern much from the black side, so I could be wrong, but I don't think it looks too great from what I've seen as white.

I have, however, tried out the Owen's Defense against 1. e4 a bit. It's not my favorite opening, but I thought it was alright. It is well-known that the Modern is better received than the Owen's is, but that means very little at the non-master level.

A friend of mine used to play the Owen's Defense a lot when he was 2000+ online (he's now a FIDE CM) with good success. He added a lot of his own novelties that got his opponents into unknown territory, and it worked pretty well for him. I believe he still uses it sometimes.

Just as a comparison, here are my chess.com statistics after 1.e4 (viewed from OpeningTree):

My win rate against the Modern is 64%, while my win rate against the Owen's defense is only 41% (again, this may be attributed to the friend I mentioned earlier, who has been significantly better than me for years, but even if you take those games out I'm confident my win rate against the Modern is still better).

I find it interesting that my win rate against the Pirc is so much worse than that of the Modern (since they have the same mainline), although I think it mostly has to do with the sidelines. I am shockingly bad against Pirc sidelines.

Falkentyne, what you are saying about the english defense is OLD news, the theory has developed considerably since then.

black wants white to play early e4, although normally he wants to see nc3 before bd3, because the early f5 there doesnt work (the engines ended the debate once and for all on the bxg2 line and bb4+ is met by kf1) but 1.d4 e6 2.c4 b6 3.e4 bb7 4.bd3 nc6!? is still fully playable by black. One of the best books today on the opening by GM Jose Gonzalez instead recommends this new idea 1.d4 e6 2.c4 bb7 3.e4 bb4+ 4.bd2 Bxd2 5.qxd2 d5! exploiting the fact the bishop hasnt yet landed on b7.

personally, i avoid all of this because i play 1.d4 b6 welcoming an owen's transposition on move 2. IF white really wants to play the 3 pawn center, he must play either nc3 e6 e4 bb4 bd3 f5 which is what black wants or lines with f3 which are also welcome by black.

Oh I'm fully aware of this.

I'm not even intending to play e4 anyway before Nc3. So I'm playing 3 Nc3 which as I did mention in my post, is a "queen's fianchetto" since black can't avoid white playing e4 anyway without some effort. 3...d5 is not desirable in this structure, and 3...f5 is not as strong as normal dutch lines. And 3 ...Bb7 4 a3 seems like a queen's indian petrosian system (4 f3 and e4 are also very good), but white has not yet committed the (g1) knight, so he can answer 4... Nf6 with 5 d5. Whether I would like to play either side of this is beyond me.

And GM Jose's idea after 3 e4 (correcting your post, I think you meant 2 ....b6 not 2...Bb7 is not "new" at all since it's the top recommended stockfish line anyway. This line was played as far back as 1925(!), but with a smattering of games starting in the mid 1990's, and slowly increasing substantially, so it's disingregious that he would take credit for this.

i have no idea what you are recommending exactly, 1.d4 e6 2.c4 b6 3.nc3 bb7 is the english defense and its what black wants to see . if you mean to play a3, most english defense players will answer with f5, not nf6 . The early d4-d5 lines are not as dangerous as they were thought to be. But even if black prefers 4.nf6 over 4.f5, 4.nf6 5.d5 is not a dangerous line , 5...bd6 is a mere 0.2. conceptually simpler and what i play is 5...g6 where in master games, black outscores white with.
plenty of things were played way before they were popularized with actual theory , i credit the theorist not the random historical inventor, except in opening names . IF you can put pinpoint a major publication on the english defense that suggested and deeply analyzed the early d5 line, you are welcome to credit them , but im crediting the GM with the best book to date on the issue.

you gotta take engine evals with a grain of salt if we gonna be comparing move 1 replies. The main recommendation SF 17.1 at depth 50 gives in the modern is 1.e4 g6 2.d4 bg7 3.nc3 d5!? a relatively rare gambit line. in the owens, the engine recommends 1.e4 b6 2.d4 bb7 3.bd3 d5!? which is the 6th most played move here in master games.
we relying on evals where the engine thinks best lines almost no master with either opening plays.

No... it isn't.

In the Modern defense, Black's c7-c5 lever move gives excellent counterplay in several variations (such as some of the Bg5 variations, which are specifically directed against Black's alternative e7-e5 Pawn break).

In the Owen's Defense, the corresponding lever move f7-f5 is a bit trappy but frankly idiotic.

This is one of the reasons that the Owen's defense offers less counter-play than the Modern.

Yeah, I could see that. I'm not a Hippo expert (I play it in bullet because it's easy to play quickly, but not in other time controls), but it makes sense that starting the Hippo with b6 instead of g6 would help avoid the early kingside attacks like the Austrian.

That's one of my least favorite things in general about early g6 openings; in many cases, white has a lot of strong options involving early kingside attacks.

c7-c5 is the main lever in the Owen's as well, no? According to the chess.com database, this is the main line:

Yes, but with the Bishop fianchettoed on the opposite flank, on b7 instead of g7, the lever move c7-c5 in the Owen's is not "the corresponding move" to the lever move c7-c5 in the Modern.

In the Modern, the move c7-c5 gives you a converging attack on the same center Pawn that the Bishop has taken under fire. The "corresponding move" in the Owen's would be f7-f5.

Please note the use of word "corresponding" in my post above.

this is a dubious argument. i can easily counter by saying, thats offset by the fact the d pawn is already defended when its on d4 and white can play c3, whereas white has to think twice about playing f3 in the owen's and thats not seen in any of the critical lines.