What was a4 for? What was it's purpose?

Actually Bird's defense was not named after an animal it was named after a man. When he was born his parents gave him the Bird. He had a Bird brain and a little Birdie told him to play chess. Whether or not you like these puns, please don't give me the Bird.  

this isnt hippo i use to play it although this still owns it either way

the video made me more aggressive in games and also more careful about tactics i can use. So thanks Dzindzichashvili!

Excuse me but why in earth king would go f8?

This ain't no Hippo.  The Hippo has g6 and b6, not g6 and b5.  The latter is just a Modern Defense and this video is great at attacking that set up.

The famous World Championship game Petrosian-Spassky was a Hippo.  Boris drew that one.  http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1106734

Of course Petrosian was not the attacking type....

thanks

I liked seeing some of the attacking possibilities for white.  I don't play the Hippo but I agree with the comments that Black does not have to play the options in the video.

Hedgehog isn't so horrible

nice video Roman, 

Roman, you make an excellent case against the Hippo. I look forward to playing this variation if it ever occurs in a tournament. ^^ 

Yeah a very solid case for sure, I've never even seen the hippo before, I'm not suprized either now! The first 3 moves looks like it's heading towards a King's Indian defence - then black goes silly and wastes tempos and by move 10 is strategically busted - awesome viewing! :)

LOL! Love the final humor at the end. It was a great lecture Roman, and you appear to make a solid case.

Spassky held his own against Petrosian with The Hippo in their 1966 World Championship match. I really don't think it falls into the same pile of bad openings as the others he mentions.

All Roman's videos are very interesting indeed. But they would be even better if printed text or pgn were included so that I could run the moves on my own chess computer and check them out at my own speed! 

I don't know if this question has been answered or not but at mins and  secs what if black plays Bd6? What does white do?

@ namahshivaya

Thanks for your thoughts namahshivaya, and yes I totally agree!! I am sticking with this opening despite many people telling otherwise. I love playing this opening and as I become more familiar with it my enjoyment and confidence in this great game keeps going up, as well as my wins! What I love is that it always forces my opponent to play outside his prefered opening, no matter what, while I always get to play in mine!

Now all this being said, I like to consider myself a logical person, and if I find that, over time, this opening is just not playable, then I will have to switch, but for the time being, at least for me, it's very playable.

Thanks for your support!

@PawnliX If you like an opening, you MUST play it. Don't let somebody's words or analysis change your choice. Don't let one loss turn you against your favorite opening either. Stay loyal to it, and keep finding ways to continue playing it. There are countless people who are loyal to winning. We need people who are loyal to their favorites regardless of the outcome.

If you listen to an analysis and decide to turn against your opening without trying as much as you can to stick to it, you will lose much more than some games: you will lose your opportunity to learn about the game you love by means of the opening you love. To me, that is a price too heavy to pay for more W's and fewer L's.

Great video!

I'm a dedicated Hippo player so the theme of this post saddens me... that being said I agree with Roman that yes, it's not a 'strong' opening in any sense of the word (i.e it wont give you an advantage), but I've also found that it's 'weakness' is overblown and everytime I see a video that states the Hippo can be destroyed with this or that approach, I personally find it interesting that I never play the moves that are being attributed to black, percisely for the reason that they produce the very weaknesses which are attacked in the videos.

All that being said, I'm a fairly new chess player (my OTB rating is 1166) and so it's completely possible that at my level it really doesnt matter what I play in the opening as long as it's not horrible. And yes I play the Hippo for the reasons that Roman mentioned, little to no theory to study, gives me a solid defensible position for the middlegame and I have fighting chances. No advantage, but for me at least, no real disadvantage either. As a beginner in Chess I personally feel it has eased my entry into this game as it can be quite rough starting out. It's quite possible I will abandon it in time... I'm open to all possibilities. Just thought I'd throw my 2 cents in as a Hippo supporter.