Lion Defense

hey guys just recenly stubled across a new opening for black with a few varriations. Its called the lion defense. I have also been to a website on it an read about it there. Played it a few times with sucess when white gets too agressive and it opens up their center pawn structure for attacks on the king with your bishops and queen. However I would like to know what you guys think of it. 

There are a few varriations on it but this seems to be the base

http://www.chess.com/opening/eco/B07_Lion_Defense_Lions_Jaw

So what do you think Good  Bad ok or just horrible and why.

It's okay though 3.Nc3 is definitely stronger.

I followed the link U've given above to the "Lion's Jaw". Otherwise, what is Lion defense exactly?

wasn't I the one who told you this opening I could give you some private pointers I learned from playing it.

I've played the Lion as Black for years now, but recently abandoned it. The problem with it is simple. Once White realizes that Black is cramping his position by his conservative center play, he can capitalize on this by being 'overly' aggressive. I have had many games where White plays e4, d4 and f4, totally controlling the center with black being too cramped to counter. The underlying premise of Black, to contain his pieces until such time as he unleashes their firepower by moving the d7 Knight is often flawed. I would say that as often as I had successful kingside attacks with the pair of knights, I also had devastating quick losses because my development was so backward. One of the reasons that I began to play the Lion was its supposed application against 'any' opening, freeing up clock time in tournament games. But if you play any opening on automatic pilot, when you do have to assess the position you are often 'too late to the party'.

you had mentioned it in the same thread i had posted in. I dont think you were talking specificly to me because i wasnt the one to start the thread. When i saw you mention it thats what made me look at it. 

I would love some pointer for playing it if you want to PM me. 

thanks 

Actually, there's a whole book dedicated on that opening.

Rather a cool name, but personally I would have preferred "Dragon's Jaw". As in, "Dancing in the...(s)".

 Its good to have in your opening repertoire, it is excellent against weaker player.

If black knows his opening he should win against most of his opponents, data base doesn't always tell you what really works. The Lion Defense is like guerrilla warfare, its very tricky and dangerous.

Simon Williams has a chessbase DVD on it and he has done an intro to the main ideas on his youtube channel

Just to clarify, the Lion is the following setup for Black:

It can be reached from the Philidor move order (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 d6), but the main move order nowadays employed to avoid a rather unpleasant White response is this:

It can also be played against 3.f3 and 3.Bd3 in the Pirc move order by playing 3...e5 followed by 4...Nbd7.

From the above position, White has a few options. He can play 5.Bc4, which tends to lead to a slight advantage for White because of his extra space and more active pieces, although Black's position is quite solid and difficult to break down. He also has (if his opponent lets him) the ...Nd7-f8-g6-f4 manoeuvre, possibly accompanied by ...h6 and ...g5 with the idea of starting a Kingside attack, although White is usually wise to this.

Or he can go full lunatic and try to blast Black off the board with 5.g4!?, my preferred option!

White also has a couple of other 4th move options: 4.Nge2 or 4.dxe5, both of which lead to a slight edge for White. 

Mate, this opening has been played at Super GM level and is clearly perfectly sound. Why on earth would you call is a garbage opening? Shimanov, Moranda, Moiseenko, Kuzubov, Morozavich, Bauer, Andreikin, Mamedov, MVL to name but a few on my database all 2600+ 

This crazy snobbishness regarding openings from players who are simply club-players like myself is madness in my eyes. There is a wide world of interesting opening ideas out there that are not topical or on point but give an interesting struggle and unusual problems, being blinkered into rubbishing one opening or another because it is not a Najdorf, Nimzo, Ruy Lopez etc is imho misunderstanding the whole joys of chess. I played Dragon/KID etc for many years and since starting to play more unusual lines my results have improved and I am playing my own brand of chess and not parroting moves, I feel more confident at the board. 

I completely agree. Since switching from the Ruy Lopez to the Vienna my results against 1...e5 have improved from 74% to about 88% on chess.com, and I haven't lost a game yet OTB. An opening should be chosen based on how it fits your style of play, how much theory there is to learn and how much time you have to learn it, and what your results are like after a few games with it. Not on whether it is routinely played by all the top players. Otherwise we'd have a whole load of Berlins, and we don't want that, do we?

I'm glad someone else mentioned their success with the Vienna vis-a-vis Ruy Lopez. It's an intimation that paradoxes like the Lion's exist, that such sleeper variations of the Pirc may indeed have somehow escaped mainstream scrutiny for years.

 What I like about the Lion Defense its very flexible. I had an opponent try to trick me in playing the pirc or modern and it backfire, he played 1.d4 g6 2.d4 Bg7 3.Nc3 d6 4.Nf3 a6 gives black good chances to play for a win. Having Lion, Modern and Pirc in your opening repertoire gives you alternative and flexibility for non-master to win more games, better than any Sicilian defense.

I haven't quiet studied lions defense but take a look at this defense for black!