I play the hippo 100% of the time. The psychological factor of you basically auto-moving the first ~10 moves while they have to think and burn time is huge !
The Hippo is much better than its reputation. It was used by Boris Spassky twice in the 1966 World Chess Championship match. Spassky drew both games as black against Tigran Petrosian. Not a bad result for an opening that is easy to play and does not require learning mountains of theory.
Not a bad result at all! Couldn't agree with your comment more. We have more Hippo games on the way including Ruslan Ponomariov, Daniel King, etc. There's been great players who have used it to get solid draws or big wins in important situations.
I first heard about this opening in the mid-Seventies in a slim book by Richard Wincor called Baroque Chess. I didn't do well with it because I overthought the opening and was clueless once the middlegame began. Thanks for concentrating on those plans. I've recently been playing it again, along with my Old Indian and Philidor/ Black Lion both as black and white. Great content once again. Thanks, Solomon.
That's cool you made a return to it Alan! Ya those are all great systems - never hurts to have the Hippopotamus Defense in your back pocket just in case you're ever in the mood. Thanks Alan.
Thank you for showing us ideas how to play hippo attack, or hippo defense against non-aggressive player who refuses to attack. One nice addition would be PGN or link to game. Enjoying!
I feel like the hippo setup is easier to achieve with white as people often play more passively with the black pieces, allowing you to create the structure easily
I can agree with this! That extra tempo can come in handy for sure. Although usually it means they don't put two pawns in the center. Which is what the Hippo is primed for. Always a give and a take I guess in certain scenarios.
Cool white moved his knights in the right direction and everything looks very settle to me and I would love to play this game win or lose I love this kind of game having a chance to see the over all picture and now I just heard you say a quite into more action yea this is a fun game❤😊
I personally play the hippo only with white... Unusual but I think it makes up for the main downsides of the hippo, being a little slow and a little passive. The extra tempo with whites makes it a killer, super solid and much less known than d4 (for example) by most opponents. The main point : PLAY IT AS WHITE - it works !
True that! Ya in this system you have your side of the board and nearly all of your pieces (if not all of them eventually) protected by something else! I haven't played Fog of War in a long time I should do that.
The four pawns setup for black seems to be very strong against the hippo. This would be where black as pawns on c5,d5,e5 and f5, has knights at c6 and f6, bishops at d6 and e6, the queen at d7, the king castled short side and rooks at a8 and f8. When black is in this setup and white is in its final hippo setup, stockfish says black has an advantage of -1.9 (this is after the end of move 10). Against players who play the four pawns game, or a setup similar to it, my hippo games have not gone well at all.
Ya this is one of the hardest setups to play against, my number one piece of advice is to get those knights dancing and try to get the opponent to continue pushing those pawns (which often overextends their position). Here is a recent game against a 2200+ National Master I had who played it. I lost the game, but got out of the opening just fine. I just messed up the endgame. Hope this is helpful, thanks. th-cam.com/video/fcPwKL0EgD8/w-d-xo.html
@@TheChessGiant Thanks for the tip. In most of the four pawns-versus-Hippo games I've played, my opponent actually continued pushing the pawns in a way that made life very cramped and difficult for me. One of the drawbacks of this opening setup, at least that I've found, is that it can make it difficult to shift pieces around when needed in order to concentrate on the opponent's weaknesses, especially at the start to around the middle of the middle game. Then again, I'm only an ELO ~1500 player, so I'm sure there are all kinds of things that I could be doing that I just haven't seen yet. By the way, do you think there's much value in playing the computer and getting your butt savagely kicked? For years, the Crafty chess engine was pretty much my only opponent. I credit it with raising my ELO from around 800 to where it is, but that was after hundreds of games of being absolutely brutalized. I considered it a win if I could make out of the middlegame.
Excellent video. I have a video request, if you’ll entertain it: can you make a video on the Rat Defense Harmonist - 1. e4 d6 2. f4? I’m a Pirc guy, and there aren’t any instructional videos online for this opening. Thank you!
@@TheChessGiant my pleasure! This is a frustrating response to my 1. … d6, and I don’t know the best approach. The computer suggest 2. … e5 I think, but that’s just effectively a bad way to decline the King’s Gambit, right? Maybe better to proceed with normal Pirc/KID setup and treat it like a move-ordered Austrian Attack? Would love a video from you because you’re one of only two or three content creators who explain things in a way that really speaks to me. Thanks again for all your great work on this channel!
thank god for this video. I play king fianchetto every game so I don't have to learn a different opening for both black and white and was wondering how to translate the extra tempo from white into an advantage. I assume black can't play early a3/h3? I was experimenting with transposing into hippo+an early pawn break like 1.g3 d5 2. c4 (if they take then qa4 with check wins back the pawn so it's flank for center pawn) but stockfish didn't like it and I'm still not entirely sure why, I'll start playing a3/h3 when im playing white and see how that goes. (edited to a3/h3)
Glad you liked it! And what do you mean by a2/h2? And ya some openings that you can play from both sides include the Hippopotamus Defense, Czech Pirc Defense, and King's Indian Attack/King's Indian Defense (only King's Indian Defense if they don't play e4 though...)
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My 6+ Hour Hippo Course! thechessgiant.gumroad.com/l/hippopotamusdefensecourse
I play the hippo 100% of the time.
The psychological factor of you basically auto-moving the first ~10 moves while they have to think and burn time is huge !
Yes the same with the pirc
Yep! Great in faster time controls
The Hippo is much better than its reputation. It was used by Boris Spassky twice in the 1966 World Chess Championship match. Spassky drew both games as black against Tigran Petrosian. Not a bad result for an opening that is easy to play and does not require learning mountains of theory.
Not a bad result at all! Couldn't agree with your comment more. We have more Hippo games on the way including Ruslan Ponomariov, Daniel King, etc. There's been great players who have used it to get solid draws or big wins in important situations.
I first heard about this opening in the mid-Seventies in a slim book by Richard Wincor called Baroque Chess. I didn't do well with it because I overthought the opening and was clueless once the middlegame began. Thanks for concentrating on those plans.
I've recently been playing it again, along with my Old Indian and Philidor/ Black Lion both as black and white. Great content once again. Thanks, Solomon.
That's cool you made a return to it Alan! Ya those are all great systems - never hurts to have the Hippopotamus Defense in your back pocket just in case you're ever in the mood. Thanks Alan.
Thank you for showing us ideas how to play hippo attack, or hippo defense against non-aggressive player who refuses to attack. One nice addition would be PGN or link to game. Enjoying!
You got it! And ya that's a good idea!
Thank you for posting this excellent video on the Hippo. I would like to see more videos on the Hippo.
Thank you Allan! And you got it! I'm planning on posting at least one hippo video a month for the next 8 months or so.
We also have a Hippo playlist if you haven't seen the other three Hippo videos so far! Wishing you a good weekend!
I feel like the hippo setup is easier to achieve with white as people often play more passively with the black pieces, allowing you to create the structure easily
I can agree with this! That extra tempo can come in handy for sure. Although usually it means they don't put two pawns in the center. Which is what the Hippo is primed for. Always a give and a take I guess in certain scenarios.
Well done, I'm a fan of the hippopotamus defense!
Thank you! And nice!
Thanks for sharing hippo attack.Love the hippo 👍
You got it Edmund! Ya I'm thinking about playing it exclusively in my next tournament.
Cool white moved his knights in the right direction and everything looks very settle to me and I would love to play this game win or lose I love this kind of game having a chance to see the over all picture and now I just heard you say a quite into more action yea this is a fun game❤😊
Love the hippo,another great opening.
Agreed!
I personally play the hippo only with white... Unusual but I think it makes up for the main downsides of the hippo, being a little slow and a little passive. The extra tempo with whites makes it a killer, super solid and much less known than d4 (for example) by most opponents. The main point : PLAY IT AS WHITE - it works !
This is exactly what i needed thank you
I don’t want to say out loud…
But this is my main opening for
‘Fog of War’
Good strategy for both white and black.
True that! Ya in this system you have your side of the board and nearly all of your pieces (if not all of them eventually) protected by something else! I haven't played Fog of War in a long time I should do that.
The four pawns setup for black seems to be very strong against the hippo. This would be where black as pawns on c5,d5,e5 and f5, has knights at c6 and f6, bishops at d6 and e6, the queen at d7, the king castled short side and rooks at a8 and f8. When black is in this setup and white is in its final hippo setup, stockfish says black has an advantage of -1.9 (this is after the end of move 10). Against players who play the four pawns game, or a setup similar to it, my hippo games have not gone well at all.
Ya this is one of the hardest setups to play against, my number one piece of advice is to get those knights dancing and try to get the opponent to continue pushing those pawns (which often overextends their position). Here is a recent game against a 2200+ National Master I had who played it. I lost the game, but got out of the opening just fine. I just messed up the endgame. Hope this is helpful, thanks.
th-cam.com/video/fcPwKL0EgD8/w-d-xo.html
@@TheChessGiant Thanks for the tip. In most of the four pawns-versus-Hippo games I've played, my opponent actually continued pushing the pawns in a way that made life very cramped and difficult for me.
One of the drawbacks of this opening setup, at least that I've found, is that it can make it difficult to shift pieces around when needed in order to concentrate on the opponent's weaknesses, especially at the start to around the middle of the middle game. Then again, I'm only an ELO ~1500 player, so I'm sure there are all kinds of things that I could be doing that I just haven't seen yet.
By the way, do you think there's much value in playing the computer and getting your butt savagely kicked? For years, the Crafty chess engine was pretty much my only opponent. I credit it with raising my ELO from around 800 to where it is, but that was after hundreds of games of being absolutely brutalized. I considered it a win if I could make out of the middlegame.
I play hippo with black all the time. It gives me higj win rate. Now I can use it with white too ! Wow
Yessir!! That's awesome. Congrats and keep it up!
Excellent video. I have a video request, if you’ll entertain it: can you make a video on the Rat Defense Harmonist - 1. e4 d6 2. f4? I’m a Pirc guy, and there aren’t any instructional videos online for this opening. Thank you!
Thanks! And thanks for telling me about this opening! Never heard of it before!
@@TheChessGiant my pleasure! This is a frustrating response to my 1. … d6, and I don’t know the best approach. The computer suggest 2. … e5 I think, but that’s just effectively a bad way to decline the King’s Gambit, right? Maybe better to proceed with normal Pirc/KID setup and treat it like a move-ordered Austrian Attack? Would love a video from you because you’re one of only two or three content creators who explain things in a way that really speaks to me. Thanks again for all your great work on this channel!
thank god for this video. I play king fianchetto every game so I don't have to learn a different opening for both black and white and was wondering how to translate the extra tempo from white into an advantage. I assume black can't play early a3/h3?
I was experimenting with transposing into hippo+an early pawn break like 1.g3 d5 2. c4 (if they take then qa4 with check wins back the pawn so it's flank for center pawn) but stockfish didn't like it and I'm still not entirely sure why, I'll start playing a3/h3 when im playing white and see how that goes.
(edited to a3/h3)
Glad you liked it! And what do you mean by a2/h2? And ya some openings that you can play from both sides include the Hippopotamus Defense, Czech Pirc Defense, and King's Indian Attack/King's Indian Defense (only King's Indian Defense if they don't play e4 though...)
@@TheChessGiantoh sorry I meant a3/h3. The pawns in front of the rooks 1:00
thank you
Brilliant
A nice game white played here!