Hippopotamus Defence

Heres a game I played using the hippo defense. Take a look

Yeah, it sure is an insulting opening, but you can't seriously act like it's in any way illegitiment, as black gives white his opening goal in exchange for psychological advantages (believe me, I'm not one of those people who just plays stuff to confuse the opponent, but the hippo is exceptionally good with this because any possible refutation, if one exists, will need to be carried out over a very large amount of moves anyway) and incredible solidity. It's actually an extreme case of like in other openings, trading one advantage for another. Black gives white the center hoping he'll run into a brick wall.

But Gonnosuke you did mention that if white plays extremely patient then no pawn break from black will be particularly effective? Well I think even Petroisan got like 2 draws I think it was against Spassky from the white side of the hippo. I really don't get why all the strong players against it still do the Bc4 and Bf4, because to me it seems to get white nowhere. Both of them are blocked by the e6 and d6 pawns, while e5 or d5 is hard to prepare and even when white gets it in it will be kicked in the face by the center closing move. If white had advanced some more of his flank pawns the closed center would probably be very much in white's favor.

And it's nice to need basically 0 theory, just an introduction to the ideas and of course how strong (and patient) you are will determine how well you play it.

Actually, this opening can be quite good. The point behind it is Black refusing any contact with White's piece. Black just waits and waits... and he has no real weaknessess... and white makes a mistake in his nervousness attempting to start an attack.

Ok fair enough, I guess with a Be3 Bd3 (assuming with c4 and/or f4) setup has the drawback of blocking the rooks for central activity (I would think not so much to get activity there yourself, but to prevent black from doing so), not that that's necessarily bad, as they still guard the center and maybe the center will be  closed.

Wouldn't you have loved to see this played by Kramnik against Anand? It would be kind of funny that the commentators wouldn't be able to use their bots to tell them who's winning. I wonder if Anand could have converted the full point there.

This one is definitely in the category of "not as bad as it looks".

Yes, at the very least. It would be nice if the opening theorists can talk about the hippo just like how they talk about all the other openings, and which setups work best against it, etc.

Isn't that one of the main points of the Hippo? That the setups which work well aren't in a book?

(because it's a ridiculous opening)

 Can you post a diagram please

You have to be careful what you wish for. Again, the whole point of this opening is that it's NOT popular. In fact, I think the game would be more interesting if you put Anand as black and Kramnik as white.

And I would DEFINITELY want to see some engine tournament games around this not-yet-refuted opening. Kasparov thinks the Benoni is basically refuted, he wouldn't even give this the time of day. Except maybe against a bot.

Right, but I'd want to know what they actually thought about how to combat it. Fine suggested (it was extremely brief, half a page) Develop knights to c3 and f3, bishops to f4, get rooks out, "ideal setup". He concludes saying that white has a marked advantage, and is ready to attack.

But the problem is he didn't say how exactly! If it were some other passive system like the philidor, there might be some clear ways to start attacking. But against the hippo, attacking with pieces seems almost impossible because all the diagonals are blocked, the center (where the black king often is) will not budge, and the pawns take away any jumping squares to attack like b5 or g5.

I found it hard to play against the hippo that's why I started to use it. I must say its pretty impressive. I've only played it 3 timesa and I'm 3-0. Maybe this opening has a brighter future.

Ok, just played the hippo in a 15 10 game, and yes I'm a positional player, but as black I just wanted to do something at least, you know? I wanted to play ...c5 at some point but I knew it just give white a small edge, but I don't know if the hippo is the best for me because I don't want to do absolutely nothing. I wouldn't mind maneouvring, but I don't want to do absolutely nothing. But just when I'm figuring out what the hell I'm gonna do, the guy (as probably always happens) gives me an aggressive advance to bite on. Even then, when I closed the center my game wasn't that great.

In fact the whole game wasn't of great quality for either of us. I played at one point ...Bd4+, and then in incredible shock realized that bishop is just hanging! But then he doesn't see it either and the game goes on! Then later on he in the same way blunders the exchange, this time I see it!

So I think the hippo is a good psychological/suprise weapon, but I would not want to put this in my main repertoire. I don't think I have the spirit of the hippo: that is doing nothing until they play something aggressive.

Elubas, thats the point. You only play it against a oppenent that is aggressive

Here is my latest try at the Hippo.  In this case, I pressed the attack in the center (I probably should have been more patient).  It's too bad he blundered at move 23.  I would have liked to see a more protracted battle.

Well, but how do you know if the opponent is aggressive on the Internet ? (Or even OTB in many cases ?)

 In online play you can check their other games. In OTB I can't

I used to be much more aggressive and would get really frustrated against openings by black that are strong point, 3rd rank, defenses.  (I still don't like them but they don't drive me nuts anymore).  The hippo seems even worse because it can counter :)

I like how gonnosuke mentions as long as you're ok with slogging through a 100 move game -- I hope I'd be patient enough to simply maneuver against it for a long long time, really trying to pick my moment carefully.

I didn't think Nezhmetdinov got such a bad position really, although it seems he did go a bit nuts with the knight sac. and he blundered a pawn on move 36.

haha well put. the hippo is like a grift because white plays for the centre with development while black saunters forward a rank

Doesn't seem that good.  I, as white, am a very aggressive player and i have destroyed the hippo defense.  The guy I played was on FICS and was a good 250 rating above me and got destroyed.