Hippopotamus Defence

That's interesting and it shows how fluid the pieces can be around the basic robust Hippo pawn formation. I might try something like that to mix it up, Understanding all the pros and cons can stop Hippo players playing like automatons.

and once again, move order issues show up. in my line 7.rd1! threatening e5 is very annoying lol.

One of the funniest lines in this thread is where you said...

"this is "only" 0.8 which hippo wise is a pretty good eval agaisnt a 3 pawn center. "

😂

i recently been going over a superb course on the old indian on chessable and the author quotes a famous KID course that says "if the engine is saying equal, black is in fact better " at least for any human. A similar principle is going on here. Evals must be taken not just absolutely but relative to what you are playing. i see a steady 0.8 in a hippo with a clear plan im jumping in joy. in a ruy lopez position 0.8 is grunting in agony lol.

Why is there an opening named after an animal?

The Hippo opening looks really stupid and harmless, but it is extremely dangerous if an opponent doesn't take it seriously. Solomon Ruddell said he played a guy who burst out laughing when he saw where the knights were going and thought he knew nothing about chess. The formation does kinda look like a Hippo peeking out a swamp! 😂

But I think it has more to do with the nature of the beast.

Despite their seemingly calm demeanor, hippos are one of the most dangerous animals in Africa. They might look like adorable water cows, but they are fiercely territorial and will charge at anything - or anyone - who gets too close. 🦛🦛🦛

It actually does! 😂

The Hippo seems to fit the name in multiple ways.

Having the knight on f6 is the definition of the Pirc. Without the knight on f6 it's the Modern Defense. So I suppose you could say that's the first Hippo variation with a legitimate name - the "Pirc/Hippo".

It would be a more aggressive variant of the normal Hippo, and it would be played differently, and in that sense would be a different opening, resembling in some respects the Reti Opening.

WHAT? you almost never play e6 in the pirc, and you almost never play b6 and bb7 in the pirc ,why would you name it a pirc? you may as well call it a kings indian while we are it lol.
you rather call it a pirc despite only having g6 bg7 and nf6 in common over a hippo when its literally almost all the ten moves but the king knight placement lmao
It would be like if i blitzed out 8 moves of london system and because i played the agressive h4 instead of h3 you insist its now a different opening lol. There is a limit to this madness. If you want to insist its still only a semi-hippo and keep the perfectionist ideal going fine, but if you gonna deny this is a hippo AND that its a semi-hippo you reach absurd territory.

Just stop the madness...

I'm currently reading 'Reassess Your Chess' by Jeremy Silman because I focus so much on the Hippo that my general chess moves are getting awful! 😭 But something he said makes me wish I was playing the Hippo 50 years ago before the age of engines.

"A chess engine can be very useful, but it can also turn into a crutch that actually prevents you from improving. Chess is a game rich in emotion, art, the rush of competition, and the joy of creation. Streams of variations and displayed numbers (0.21) turn a warm, extremely human game into something cold and unknowable."

it cuts both ways hippo-holmes. Engines have made much of chess especially the opening quite robotic but at the same time its responsible for the biggest renaissance in theory. Now things that were dismissed out of old dogmas are being tried and revived by the same cold machines.

That;s true. I suppose players at my level will never be affected too much, but Freestyle chess seems to be the future at the GM level. It's becoming 'the thing' to play because of the amount of standard games that are theory from start to finish nowadays. As a Hippo player trying to simplify the opening process, I look at Freestyle chess and feel like someone has sawn a hole in my skull and popped an egg whisk in! 🤣

The Chess Giant did a Hippo vs Cow video! 😂

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39WfvhQQc9M

Then, can you please demonstrate the weakness in my move order?

I have to admit there were quite a few games that shouldn't be in a Hippo course. But he did cover some good Hippos too, like Spassky at the World Championship. There is 5 hours of video and probably about an hour that had nothing much to do with the Hippo, and some were very unusual pawn structures. His book, which is much older than the course, also had games that left you scratching your head. Andrew Martin is an opening specialist, but certainly not a Hippo specialist. That's why the Chess Giant's course is much better. To be fair to Andrew Martin his course costs very little compared to those of Simon Williams and the Chess Giant, so I don't see it as a waste of money.

I've tried it against some Bots and it seems ok! 😁 What I love about the Hippo is there are many ways to reach it. In theory you could start with your a and h pawns and build a Hippo, but it obviously depends how passive the opponent is. I hate it when they decide to fianchetto both bishops too, so you end up with four fianchettoed bishops on the board. It's like the 'Gunfight at the O.K. Corral"