Hippopotamus Defence

But I defeated tal bot using hippo opening .

💀 what is this

I agree

the hippo opening is bad

you need to specify what your opponent has played to rate the hippo Its usually if ok if white plays a two pawn center slightly dubious againsth the c-d-e 3 pawn center and outright dubious vs the d-e-f 3 pawn center. Also black should know when to slightly diverge from the textbook line up.

it has never been considered a fully reliable defense but its a tough nut to crack and the positions have a lot of latent counterattacking chances

This book is about the Hippopotamus defense!

 :(

I have seen that a lot, I never knew it was a legitimate defense. I always just called it "The Fruit Cellar" because thats where black seems to be hiding. I have come to grief on it, at times, by becoming over extended. I would be on the verge of breaking through to black's king, then suddenly everything went sideways, and my king would have to go into bitter exile to a cramped Paris apartment.

The Hippo is a lot of fun and improved my middle game resourcefulness… BUT (regrettably) it cannot be played against anything. In particular, if White adopts a classical set up as he would against the King’s Indian defense, locks the center with d5, and then breaks on the queenside after due preparation with c5, the Hippo structure falls apart as Black’s Queenside fianchetto just creates weak squares and targets for White Queenside pawn advance. For this reason, I strongly suggest Hippo def players to learn the Modern, incl the Neo-Modern defense, so they can vary away from the Hippo double fianchetto formation when need be.

Keith Allen from Ulster (he plays in the Isle of Man now) played the hippo against me. yeah we lost interest and called it a draw when the middlegame started.

my copy of De santis hippo book arrived today and im already impressed. The author has a gift for explaining the proper ideas to keep in mind vs different white formations. which is exactly how to approach a defense like this one!

Chapter 5 in "Tiger's Modern" (chapter 6 in "Modern Tiger") is another good resource for the Hippo. Hippo is a valid defense and I think we are going to be seeing more of it for a long time to come.

I used to get into terrible trouble in my openings due to my dodgy memory, but since I started playing the Hippo, which has to be one of the easiest chess openings to learn, I rarely get caught out in the opening anymore. Quite the opposite actually.

It's also an opening you can play equally well with white or black.

For anybody interested in learning all the tips and tricks about the Hippo there are three wonderful resources on Youtube.

The Chess Giant - Solomon Ruddell {He's like a 7ft Hippo Jedi}

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLKx6s-gbAEVFRPrHu40cMsTa2IiCGwUba

Robert Drury (His Hippo insights are fascinating - He literally speaks all his thoughts as he plays)

https://www.youtube.com/@kniteplayer-chess

Eric Hansen's Hippo Speedrun (He goes from 800 to 2500 using nothing but the Hippo with white and black)

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLUjxDD7HNNTjPPDAZGCcpmpSmw6QFLxJU

There is also a Chessable course by Simon Williams based on the excellent book by Alessio De Santis - it covers absolutely everything!

The Chess Giant always refers to the Hippo as a 'Cheat Code' for chess because it makes openings so easy.

It certainly proves chess openings aren't always complicated.

'Tiger's Modern' was the first time I ever read about the Hippo. It's a great chapter jam packed with example games. Since then i've read the books by Andrew Martin, Eric Briffoz, and Alessio De Santis. The Briffoz book covers the white as well as the black side, but even the 4th Edition has a lot of typos. There are no errors in the game text though (that I noticed) and that's the important part. All good Hippo books in their own way. I really wish Solomon Ruddell would write a book. His perspective on the Hippo is a bit different from that of these authors.

That's a good thing. Players attack you thinking you're daft and don't know where to position your Knights in the opening! 🤣

If you have the DeSantis book, you might find this helpful to play through the games. This is not advertising. You do not need to join to make use of it as a resource.

https://www.chess.com/club/book-hippo-de-santis

Thanks! That will be useful because I plan to reread the book after I finish Simon William's Chessable course on it. I always start playing my own version of the Hippo if I don't refresh my memory from time to time. I'm 50 now, and my memory wasn't particularly great when I was 20.

The PGN file of the De Santis book will help a LOT!!

Thanks.