Opinion Of The Owen’s

1000% this. You nailed it in the head my friend

1. its not always about the eval on its own, but the likelyhood your opponent has the skill or know how to materialize and mantain it.

2. at the end, a line is busted or its not, the rest is how problematic it is to play. Many things that are playable are almost never seen not because they are bad but because alternatives are preferred. (e.g the old steinitz defense of the ruy lopez went from being an opening played by world champions to almost never  played despite having no refutation

3. what problem is too large once you establish a line is not busted can vary between players. the pirc at the super  GM level for example is a sound defense, but white has so many ways to claim a pleasant edge the consensus is that most players find it requires too many small problems to solve for most players to want to play it  Something similar has been happening with the KID.  You also have to balance what problems what you play creates for you with what problems you create for your opponent. Rapport for example sometimes plays openings that are outright refuted but he has confidence the odds you happen to remember how so when are small.

 "The engine will never figure this out from the initial position. You always have to put more moves on the board to get a proper eval. ."

this is how i know llama knows how to use an engine. The horizon of the engine must be compensated by a human pruning the position deeper manually to get a true evaluation. leaving your engine on till depth 50 is in some positions misleading.  This makes preparing agaisnt such clowns a breeze.

the truth of the owens is , most players are not willing to deal with the set of problems/challenges the defense throws at you. many players hate closed positions, others hate having to figure out subtle differences in each position (when to play for ba6 vs  queenside clamp ,when g5 work when nb4 works, when castling is good vs bad the few times f6 is good etc) others hate that the resources to find out at rare and spread out unlike mainlines were the answer to all their problems can be found in one place (most players dont like being opening pioneers). And that's ok. Its when people think their preferences amount to some objective deficiency in those that advocate the road less taken that i get irked. Especially since ALWAYS welcome analyzing concrete lines they think are refutations or too troublesome but they almost never engage.

Play in one more event and surprise, we will be in the same boat.  But like always, when you have lost the argument, you resort to more logical fallacies.  This time, an indirect ad hominem.  Trying to see how many you can fit into one discussion?

An when did I mention he should learn the Caro, French, or Sicilian?  Oh, that's right, I didn't.  I recommended the Open Games with 1...e5.  I even pointed out literally everything you just said and agree that in general the opening is not his biggest issue.

My only contention is that playing the Owen's at his level will delay learning the basics and make it tougher for him later on.  If he is just playing for fun and has no aspirations to improve, that won't matter.

But, I am sure you will find another logical fallacy to throw into a reply.  Maybe an appeal to authority?  Or maybe a bandwagon fallacy?  So many good ones to choose from that you have not used yet.

I'm guessing the gish gallop.

reductio ad absurdum

thing X needs quality 1 2 and 3 to be Y

show Thing Z with quality 1, 2 and 3 that is not Y

point refuted. THAT IS NOT A STRAW MAN

I will ignore you from now on. Get back to me when you get a title (which are for life) and when you know how to use a database properly.

It is funny that you will probably never know why your response here is so funny.  Suffice it to say, I do not disagree with anything you said in it, but it is amusing that you seem to have thought I was claiming the Owen's is bad for some reason, despite me never saying that, and embarked on a series of comments with that mindset.  My only point was that it may not be good for the OP, given his current situation, depending on his goals.  The reasons for that are simple: it tends to violate opening principles which he is still learning (same problem with several other openings, as you already mentioned), has a low number of good model games (so the OP would be left to his own devices in his studies), and many lines leave Black in a significantly worse position for quite a while (and yes, I am aware the horizon effect comes into play, but in general when you have an eval close to 1, it general means White has some advantages that make it easier to play, if he has some idea of what to do).  None of that was refuting the "road less traveled".  As I said, my friend did not switch until he was starting to play master-level players consistently and having trouble.  That is a far cry from saying it is a bad opening.

Finals week must have fried your brain as that did not address a single thing I stated, and then you go on to the false appeal to authority.

Hi! I play regularly 1...b6 (Queen's fianchetto) against any White's first move so I usually get into Owen's deffense.I agree it is somewhat inferior and you have to be careful  because your position can get too cramped. Anyway for me the most important is whether you like the type of middle game you get or not-not anyone likes to allow the opponent to build a nice center. I lkie the "hypermodern" style of play and I have a reasonable 50% winning rate with it as Black, about the same as I do with the Pirc/Modern (King`s fianchetto).

Normally for beginners I would not advice to play Owen's as only deffense agianst 1.e4 but as a surprise weapon instead. Best way to learn the fundamentals of chess would be to meet 1.e4 with 1...e5, just play classic.

Good luck!

I copy and paste what I said in another topic about of Owen Defense :

Owen Defense :  1) e4 b6 2) d4 Bb7 here chess program can also play 3. Nc3, 3. Nd2, 3. d5, 3. f3 but in practice it seems to me that human plays almost all the time or very frequently 3. Bd3  so if the Owen Defense player doesn't play against bot in theory he doesn't face as many variants.

Owen Defense : 1) e4 b6 2) d4 Bb7 3) Bd3 (in fact as White we encounter it so infrequently that we treat the position as a "newborn" and it is often "a noob" who plays it which reinforces us in the idea of not studying anything about this opening) We are encouraged not to play the natural move 3.Nc3 because we figure there will be one x)...c5 and we prefer to have one x) c3.

a : 3...f5 4) exf5 Bxg2 5) Qh5+ g6 6) fxg6 Bg7 to be explored surely winning for White

b : 3...Nf6 4) Qe2 e6 5) Nf3 d5 6) e5 Nfd7 of the same kind as a French Defense Advance Variation

c : 3...Nf6 4) Qe2 e6 5) Nf3 d5 6) e5 Ne4 the move that chess programs like to play 

You can link to it instead, probably a better idea. https://www.chess.com/forum/view/chess-openings/modern-defense-and-owen-defense-50525944#comment-73009043

I have no view on the Owen's per we, never played it and also never met it. It's probably sound as GMs who do play offbeat openings have on occasion played it.

The question is why pick the Owen's? You will have trouble because you won't have access to a lot of material, lots of high quality games that demonstrate thematic plans, theory curated & published by a strong player etc. Already with books, and curated lines the time investment is significant.

You'll basically be almost on your own, doing research on the Owen's. Maybe you like that, maybe you don't. Evaluate that approach based on the ROI for your invested time. Is Eg doing research on the Owen's preferred to improving other areas?

Personally I'd rather spend that time on technical Endgames and the small footprint of pawn structures, but each to their own.

Also choosing an opening is a quite committal act, in that for 2-3 years you will spend significant time on that opening, it's a very big investment. You will analyse your games on that opening to learn when to release tension, when is the endgame good or bad, what and how to trade etc.

You need to play and analyse a lot of classical games to reach a good level of play in your main defence. Widely available knowledge to help you with this trumps the surprise factor in my view.

After that you probably want to go ahead and make something like a Garrybase, which is, again, a huge time investment. Also it's a factor what a coach you have may know well, as a good coach could speed this up 5x ( with the benefit of hindsight I regret not playing what my coach knew well when I was playing OTB as a junior ).

If you are ok with the extra time and effort it will take you to get playable positions out of offbeat openings and be a researcher, then by all means, go for it. Is it realistic for a non-professional to wear a Tony Miles or Jon Speelman hat?

The task is very demanding, due to the time it requires, for most players, but each to their own.

That said, @darkunorthodox, from White's POV for the Owen's, without really assuming additional research in theory ( which is hard to justify for an opening most players rarely face, if ever ), is there any book or other resource you've found to be good? Ie any of the GM series books or an online article?

a Combination of GM Bauer's b6 book and IM Lakdawala's is a very good start although neither by themselves or even together are exhaustive. You will need to get extra help from the engine and database for any gaps in their inventory.

P.S wait from WHITE's point of being? half the time the most challenging lines where engine derived. not From human play. although its not like turning the engine on alone gives you the answer. You may want to turn on database and see which lines score well and explore which sidelines are were the blood is.

A few resources for White:

John Shaw's "Play 1. e4 Caro-Kann, 1...e5, and Minor Openings" spends a few pages on it.

Christof Seleicki's "Keep It Simple 1. e4" book/course has several lines covering.

The Butcher had a few videos on the ChessBrah channel going over it.

Granted, almost all of those stop once White has reached a pleasant position in the middlegame (except for tactically refuted lines), so an Owen's player may know what to do in those middle games better than you (at least they should), but the idea is that you will reach a middlegame that gives you some slight edge and should not be too difficult to find good moves.

if you really want to test your opponent as white play the the 3.nc3 4.bd3 5.nge2 line. You will get a quick win if black doesnt play precisely because all the natural moves (c5 ,d5, bb4 ) are either suspect (d5 ,e5, ng8!? is objectively the best try) or outright terrible.

Thanks @PawnTsunami, have you tried those lines? With repertoire books it's the eternal question eg why Shaw's and not Negi or Khalifman, all good authors and good books but the ( practical-only ) difficulty with something like the Owen's from White's POV is that in practice nobody will play 20 training games to find which line they will pick and become familiar with the fineprint of the resulting positions.

This would be the sort of position I'd expect a good repertoire to provide Vs the Owen's though, a comfortable += , which is by no means a win but Black would be under some mild pressure without obvious counterplay. A somewhat similar state of affairs eg to how the Rubinstein line in the Budapest pans out for Black.

@darkunorthodox88, thanks for the line tip - Is it the setup GM Flear discusses here ( first game )? Also regarding the books, are they trying to be objective or ( like some authors do ) skewed towards Black?

Owen's is my main defense , b6 ,  bishop b7 , knight g6 and pawn e6

Shaw's books tend to be written with the club player in mind (more explanation, less trees of variations).  Negi is also very good, but I do not remember if he covered the minor openings (his series is still incomplete as he hasn't published the book on meeting 1...e5, which presumably will be based on the Ruy Lopez).  The only problem I ran into with Shaw's is he stops short on a few minor lines, but the Owen's is not one of them.  I have not looked at Khalifman's recommendation against it, but I would be surprised if it is not solid as well.

It’s bad. Stockfish prefers the modern way more. Owen’s is like +0.8 in the opening