Improving on Owen's Defense?

Ony one time someone played the Owen defence against me. Because I didn t know it My game went differently.

Since for whatever reason this thread has been revived I want to mention something that came up in some recent Carlsen game where he was black against Eljanov. I think 1. Nf3 b6 2. e4 Bb7 3. Nc3 e6 4. d4 Bb4 is a perfectly playable position for black, and something like that happened in the game and Carlsen crushed. But the nuance is that after Bb7 e4 is attacked, and white can't go Bd3 because the pawn isn't yet on d4. If you play 1. e4 b6 2. d4 Bb7, here white can play 3. Bd3 and not commit to Nc3 and this is definitely a little more critical. Or after 3. Bd3 e6 4. Nc3 Bb4 you have 5. Ne2 which is a cute idea Perunovic made a video about. 

RubenHogenhout

9...h5
This is not good. In the Owen black should keep on pressure on whites centre pawns, so dxe4 or Be7 is necessary.
Still black has some advantage, but with any move looses influence here on the white centre pawns. After all white takes over and wins. Maybe this is the garbage 4rcane mentioned.
Remember in the Owen: black not rules the centre at all, but just attacks it. Maybe this is to hard to do

RubenHogenhout its in Dutch! WOW Dutch is a very logic language anyway.

In other threats about the Owen i found this game above.
About the mentioned Carlsen game, look at it: - New In Chess 2017#8 (by Jeroen Bosch page 70) -
I myself recently played some games and won, but this was due to tactical errors of white (and also of me...), so not instructive.
Against Stockfish level 7 (about 1600 rate) i played this one:

I still don't know but i'm so very curious about this Owen.

im pretty much an Owen's expert, so if you have any questions about some specific line, i would be happy to oblige. 

I don't think you will catch anyone who has been playing online blitz of guard with the owen defence. It's probably the opening I face the most and I've heard Aman Hambleton saying something similar (he plays a lot of owen defence online himself). I honestly think you will catch many more people at your level of guard with main lines (and understanding the refutations of peoples bullsh*t openings will help you understand the importance of move order and stuff like that). I don't know how well the opening is doing in correspondence chess etc, but I thinks it's certainly playable in blitz. I just don't like the resulting cramped, passive positions for black.

I play it in bullet. Usually via 1...e6. The main reason is it's somewhat premovable and players under 2100 are likely to blunder the e4-pawn or allow relative equality in the Nf3 Nc3 lines where black gets to take on d2 or whatever. Wouldn't play it in a game longer than that against an opponent I respected because there are several lines I can't figure out how to equalize against but that's just me I guess

the owen's is not a passive opening by any means. Some lines are cramped sure, and behave a lot like slower french defenses but black has plenty of poison in his position if he knows what he is doing. 

this is what i can say in general

the nf3 nc3 are by far the easiest and equalize the quickest. you often even get a better endgame in these lines.

the bd3 nd2 lines are a little trickier but black has plenty of resources to combat it. the french lines here give black extra resources like an early a5 or even early g5 not available or as good as in the qe2 lines

the bd3 qe2 lines are the trickiest. they are generally 3 methods to play agaisnt it (i dont count the hippo among them), you have the french owen plan, the miles plan, and the blatny ruy lopez plan. I think they are ordered here from best to worst. regardless the bulk of your study would be on this variation.

nc3 and ne2 is also a little tricky. the reason is that sadly the common idea for black of early e6 and c5 is objectively refuted by an early d4-d5 idea (although this is not well known). instead black must be satisfied with either the french idea (often with the bizarre looking ng8!?) or with d6 be7 0-0 hoping for later c5 and a pleasant hedgehog system.

I usually feel like I'm the one having all the fun when facing the owen, but that probably just because I'm so low rated. Can you maybe link to some games where black gets active play? Preferably in the bd3 qe2 lines cause that's what I play with white.

you wont get fireworks. its just not that type of opening. 

from this position, at least a cursory chesstempo database excursion from master games will tell you that Black actually scores better overall, with the exception of early a3 (but that is only because nc6?! b4! is a common error, accounting for that, the stats prefer black).

the position is completely fine for black, who will play for a massive queenside pawn storm via c5-c4 and b5 a5 b4, or he will play to swap the bad bishop via a5-qc8-ba6 which is mostly ok (there is one specific line which is a little problematic involving na3 that is rarely played, but black shoudnt stand much worse there either, black will play a very slow queenside manuever with his knights, via nc6-nd7-nb8 etc)

but word of advice for black, NEVER EVER castle if the bishop is on d3 (or even if queens are still on the board in general). you will be much safer on e8 for a long time. often black goes either 0-0-0 or kd7 instead, if you get too castle 0-0, its often closer to move 20 after lots of trades)

here is why i dont trust the "miles" plan which smirnov seems to advocate.

i dont trust this position as black. Lakdawala seems to think black is not that much worse and black has some form of counterplay involving a6 qc7 nd8-nf7, but after some computer analysis, i was not so convinced. To be fair though, even playing masters the likelyhood they will discover all of this over the board is slim to none, but in this day and age of cloud engines, i woudnt want some nasty preparation sprung on me either.

in this specific line, what alternative is there? all i see is 4.d5 and 4.d6 (4.be7 is no good).  4.d5 is bad because after e5, the king knight will have some difficulties getting out to add to black's cramp. (attempts like ne7-c6 and nd7, are stiffled by a well timed bg5), and 4.d6 wont hold white back for long. Black will need to castle sooner or later, and his pieces are aimed in that direction.

This position is the real ? mark of the classical owen's. As i shown above, the bxc5 lines are miserable for black but here i am not so sure. Black's structure is quite steady and healthy, especially after a timely be7 retreat. The engine absolutely dislikes blacks position but agaisnt a human player? im not so sure i have much to be afraid, and indeed Lakdawala prefers to cover this line over bxc5 in more detail in his book. 

this is one of those positions that even if the engine threw out some eval like 0.7, it would require very precise and inhumanly planless play to mantain. The slightest natural move and white's advantage becomes objective very manageable. 

http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1641647

this is the sample game provided in the book, and it shows that regardless of what the engine thinks, blacks play is certainly more natural than that ugly mess in the bxc5 line above.

Valuable contributions.

For a mediocre player like me, very educational.

no prob man. if there is any specific position you need advice on how to play, feel free to ask me, i know the Owen's like the palm of my hand.

if you are a class player, you will rarely face the real testing lines, instead you will get natural setup with 3.nc3 and 4.nf3 which equalize relatively quickly. even when you reach 1800 and 2000 level, you will meet someone with generic knowledge of the more testing tries (like bd3 qe2,or nc3 bd3 nge2) but i can guarantee you, they really dont know much beyond the general formation. Your prep can easily overtake theirs.