The Hippopotamus Defence - A Deceptively Dangerous Universal Chess Opening System for Black, Alessio de Santis, New In Chess, 2019 (2024)

FAQs

Is hippopotamus defense good chess? ›

It's a great opening if you are playing an aggressive opponent because it's designed for counter-attacking, but against passive opponents it usually leads to boring, drawn games, the kind of games that make you wish you never played the Hippo Defense.

The Hippopotamus Defence is a chess opening system employed by Black, consisting of a double fianchetto structure (bishops on b7 and g7) and a small pawn centre (pawns on d6 and e6). The knights are typically developed to e7 and d7 and the rook's pawns to a6 and h6.

PYTHAGORAS' THEOREM. For a mnemonic recalling the Greek mathematician's formula governing the lengths of each side of a right-angled triangle: "... The squaw on the hippopotamus is equal to the sum of the squaws on the other two hides!"

Hippopotamus Mate

The checkmate takes place in 6 moves involving a beautiful Queen sacrifice. White and Black both develop their Queenside Knights, followed by Black bringing the c6 Knight to the center and then to f3 to checkmate the King. The end position here is similar to that in the Smothered Mate.

The trouble with Hippo and other 'small' and not mainline-openings is that if you DON'T get to the starting tabiya because the opponent didn't play the exact moves, you're already in a far worse position than if you would have played simple healthy chess with the universal opening rules like 1) pawn to the center, 2) ...

Underpromoting to a bishop must be the rarest move in chess. We can easily think of some famous examples of rook promotions (such as the brilliant Saavedra study), and by comparison knight underpromotions happen every day - just think of this opening trap in the Albin Countergambit.

It's also known that Einstein could play chess, though he reportedly disliked the competitive aspect. That said, he was a great player, even though he never really pursued the game.

Knightmare Chess is played with cards that change the default rules of chess. The cards might change how a piece moves, move opponent's pieces, create special squares on the board or otherwise alter the game.

Einstein's energy triangle becomes (as seen in minutephysics ): Here the potential energy (or “rest energy”) component of a system is on the vertical coordinate and the kinetic energy (or “radiant energy”) component is on the horizontal coordinate. Total energy (in space) is on the hypotenuse.

What is a hippo in slang? ›

HiPPO is the acronym for the highest paid person's opinion or the highest paid person in the office.

One of the closest relatives to the hippo are whales; compared to these animals, hippos are not as intelligent but are not stupid either. They also don't have the intelligence of elephants, which are the largest land animal on the planet.

Patronization seems to be a big part of it. Since girls aren't the ones that are likely to play chess, when they're taught it (if they're taught it) the teachers often go very easy on them as to spare their feelings and to keep them interested in chess.

Two knights forced checkmate might be the rarest checkmate. Two knights alone is not enough to checkmate, as the opposing king must be put in stalemate for at least one move.

Duck Chess introduces a rubber duck that acts as a blocker. The duck blocks the square it's on, making it impossible for pieces to move to that square or through it. The duck creates a lot of new tactical possibilities (often called "quacktics") by unpinning pieces, blocking defenders, trapping pieces, and more.

According to the hypermodern school of chess, the Pirc defense opening is one of the most aggressive strategies for black. If you need a black defense to the King's Pawn Opening without directly challenging the White's central space, then this line is probably the best pathway.

The only animals in the same ecosystem that regularly butt heads with hippos are elephants and rhinos. Individually, they both over match the average hippo with size, and usually with intelligence and ferocity.