the black lion

Can anyone give me an evaluation of this opening the lion.

here is a link to where i found this any feedback is appreciated.

/www.vanrekom.nl/thelion/indexgb.htm

You can get to this position transposing the Caro-Kann and the Pirc. You can also get to this position against 1.d4, c4, and Nf3. It's a very good defense, with nice counter-attacking chances. It's very malleable. I really like it:)

This is just the Philidor Defence though a Pirc move order no?

-- Heh, their animated gif (http://www.vanrekom.nl/thelion/leeuw2.gif) is busted, ..Be7 must be played before ..c6, otherwise Black is just lost after Ng5

I think this is the Lion Variation (or Lion's Claw) of the Philidor Defense. I use it all the time.

Basically, the Lion entails 1...d6 against all of White's first move, whatever that is. But the main part of the Lion (according to an IM Andrew Martin DVD of Foxy Openings)

I think the position does score well, for white!

Black is simply reacting to white's threats without initiating his own.  In addition he cannot castle.  I would say that black has very little chances to win while playing for a draw.

also, you've got to have a lot of patience when playing this variation

I think this is not a very great system. Though there is a big advantage for black. Probably his white opponent will soon be out of theory.Which will change when it becomes more popular. Looks a lot like Philidor.

Try playing a Budapest defense against a "standard" club opponent. He will probably make mistakes to. I feel a lot for the views of Seirawan: play the opening with certain objectives in mind. Don't just reproduce theory.

 Khalifman in his series "White According to Anand" vol 4. Chapter 5 talks about this line and reccomends it for white.   

I am not so sure about the diagram above but here is a link to the Lion. A player here on chess.com uses it for 1min and 3min and he is rated 2400 (stellaoctangula). The interesting thing is he plays it for white and black.

http://chesstempo.com/gamedb/opening/1497

I think that the so called 'the lyon' is just a variation of the philidor-pirc defense:

1.e4 d6 2.d4 Nf6 3.Nc3 e5,

This defense often produces the exchanges of queens and is very well rated for black. However, in ´the lyon´ variation the third move 3...e5 is delayed and black plays 3...Nbd7 blocking the exchange of queens. In my database, the position after: 1.e4 d6 2.d4 Nf6 3.Nc3 Nbd7 scores 52.4% for white, so is not a bad defense for black.