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At the beginner-intermediate level, you will occasionally face openings that you are unfamiliar with. Some of these will not be bad openings, just less common, though sometimes they will be a bit obscure.

One of the lessons that I’ve learnt over the last few years is to simply follow general opening principles when facing an unfamiliar opening! There are “principles” for a reason, and “going creative” in somebody else’s opening experience rarely goes well!

In this match, my opponent with the black pieces played Owen’s Defense (1. e4 b6), which I had encountered only a small number of times before, though none which I could actively recall during the game. Eric Schiller in his book, Unorthodox Chess Openings (1998) had this to say about the Owen Defense:

“The Owen Defense has virtually disappeared from serious tournaments, though there are efforts by some die-hard fans to bring it back to life. White can grab the entire center. There are a few trappy lines, and these often lead to quick victories for Black, but most of them are double-edged and White comes out on top with accurate play.” (p. 323)

In this game, I simply attempted to play the opening solidly. I take the full centre with my central pawns, develop both knights, develop my king’s bishop, and castle king-side on move 6. According to Stockfish, White had an advantage of roughly [+1] demonstrating that simple adherence to opening principles against more unorthodox openings is a fine tactic. Indeed, although the evaluation fluctuates a bit, I’m pretty much ahead on evaluation over the entire game!

Against me taking the centre and developing quickly, Black sacrificed both of their bishops for my knights and made some slow passive movements with flank pawns. This meant that in the early middlegame they had a space disadvantage, and a massive disadvantage in development – on move 9 the evaluation was better than [+4] for me.

With the centre locked, I infiltrated Black’s position with my bishops and gradually suffocated all the movement around Black’s king! On move 19, Black made a game-changing blunder [+8] though it wasn’t obviously so during the game (19… Kxe7). By moving the king into the dark-square diagonal and a potential check, Black lost a critical defensive tactic. Prior to this point, my bishop on c6 was pinned against my queen by their rook. Now, I could unpin the bishop by giving a check with my queen!

This proved decisive as it effectively added one further attacking piece and the suffocation of the king could now suddenly be released with a forced series of trades! And at the verge of the final trade, Black resigned as they would have entered an endgame with only 5 pawns, against 6 pawns and a rook.

Good game!

Game on chess.com: https://www.chess.com/game/live/64627381377

[Event "Live Chess"]
[Site "Chess.com"]
[Date "2022.12.12"]
[Round "-"]
[White "vitualis"]
[Black "ElGringo90"]
[Result "1-0"]
[Timezone "UTC"]
[ECO "B00"]
[ECOUrl "https://www.chess.com/openings/Kings-Pawn-Opening-Owens-Defense-2.d4-Bb7"]
[UTCDate "2022.12.12"]
[UTCTime "23:41:02"]
[WhiteElo "1360"]
[BlackElo "1409"]
[TimeControl "1800"]
[Termination "vitualis won by resignation"]
[StartTime "23:41:02"]
[EndDate "2022.12.13"]
[EndTime "00:00:00"]
[Link "https://www.chess.com/game/live/64627381377"]

1. e4 b6 {Owen's Defense [+0.5]} 2. d4 Bb7 3. Nc3 e6 4. Nf3 Bb4 5. Bd3 {All book
moves up to this point [+0.2]} 5... h6 $6 {[%c_effect
h6;square;h6;type;Inaccuracy;persistent;true] An inaccuracy [+1.1]} 6. O-O Bxc3
7. bxc3 d6 8. e5 $6 {[%c_effect
e5;square;e5;type;Inaccuracy;persistent;true][%c_arrow
a2a4;keyPressed;none;from;a2;opacity;0.8;to;a4;persistent;false][%c_highlight
a4;keyPressed;none;opacity;0.8;square;a4;persistent;false] An inaccuracy (from
[+1.54 to +0.66] though Stockfish's best move, a4, is a bit obscure} 8... Bxf3 $4
{[%c_effect f3;square;f3;type;Blunder;persistent;true] This was a blunder
[+4.27] as Black loses their powerful bishop controlling the long diagonal, and
White develops another piece} 9. Qxf3 d5 10. c4 c6 11. cxd5 cxd5 12. Bb5+ Nd7
13. Ba3 $2 {[%c_effect a3;square;a3;type;Mistake;persistent;true][%c_arrow
c2c4;keyPressed;none;from;c2;opacity;0.8;to;c4;persistent;false][%c_highlight
c4;keyPressed;none;opacity;0.8;square;c4;persistent;false] Stockfish labels this
a mistake (from almost [+6 to +3.5] as it calculates that Black can defend
against the attack on the queen-side.  In the game, this worked for me, but it
involved high risk moves where Black could have equalised the game, and perhaps
even gotten an advantage.} 13... a6 14. Bc6 Rb8 $2 {[%c_effect
b8;square;b8;type;Mistake;persistent;true] In the game, best moves were not
simple to find or calculate by humans. Apparently (Rc8) was best with the
valuation going from [+3.5 to +6.5].} 15. Bd6 $6 {[%c_effect
d6;square;d6;type;Inaccuracy;persistent;true] Stockfish thinks this strategy was
suboptimal [+4.7] by my goal was to squeeze Black's position} 15... Rc8 16.
Qc3 $4 {[%c_effect c3;square;c3;type;Blunder;persistent;true] Bringing another
piece into the attack, but in a high risk manner [-0.13].} 16... b5 $4
{[%c_effect b5;square;b5;type;Blunder;persistent;true] In the tension, Black
immediately blunders back [+4.11]} 17. a4 Ne7 18. axb5 axb5 19. Bxe7 $2
{[%c_effect e7;square;e7;type;Mistake;persistent;true] Stockfish also considered
this line of liquidation suboptimal [+1.38] as it considers the position
defendable by Black} 19... Kxe7 $4 {[%c_effect
e7;square;e7;type;Blunder;persistent;true] A game-changing blunder [+8] $1
Although this seems to make sense, connecting the rook on h8 and unpinning the
knight, it also gifts White the opportunity to unpin the bishop with check} 20.
Qb4+ $1 {[%c_effect b4;square;b4;type;GreatFind;persistent;true]} 20... Ke8 21.
Qxb5 h5 22. Ra7 Rc7 23. Ra8 Rc8 $6 {[%c_effect
c8;square;c8;type;Inaccuracy;persistent;true] An inaccuracy [+22.9]} 24. Bxd7+
Qxd7 $2 {[%c_effect d7;square;d7;type;Mistake;persistent;true] [+M3]} 25. Rxc8+
Ke7 26. Qxd7+ $6 {[%c_effect
d7;square;d7;type;Inaccuracy;keyPressed;undefined;persistent;true][%c_arrow
b5c5;keyPressed;none;from;b5;opacity;0.8;to;c5;persistent;false][%c_highlight
c5;keyPressed;none;opacity;0.8;square;c5;persistent;false] This was actually a
suboptimal move as I didn't see the checkmate sequence. Rather, I saw that I
could force an endgame up a rook.} ({This is the forced checkmate line} 26. Qc5+
Qd6 27. Qxd6#) 26... Kxd7 {[%c_effect
g1;square;g1;type;Winner,d7;square;d7;type;ResignBlack] Black saw this too, and
resigned - GG $1} 1-0