Hippopotamus opening
In the Hippopotamus Defense is a rarely performed opening of the chess game which is mainly used by Black. Depending on the selected white opening it belongs to the closed games or half-open games and owes its name to the particular constellation of characters that removes to a hippopotamus ( Hippopotamus to remember).
| a | b | c | d | e | f | G | H | ||
| 8th |  |
 |
|
 |
 |
|
|
|
8th |
| 7th |  |
 |
|
 |
|
|
|
|
7th |
| 6th | |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
6th |
| 5 | |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
5 |
| 4th | |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
4th |
| 3 | |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
3 |
| 2 |  |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
2 |
| 1 |  |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
|
|
1 |
| a | b | c | d | e | f | G | H |
A basic position of the hippopotamus opening (from a black perspective).
history
The hippopotamus opening attracted worldwide attention when the future world champion Boris Spasski used this structure in the world championship match against Tigran Petrosyan in the 12th and 16th match game in 1966 (the games ended in a draw after 39 and 49 moves respectively ). In today's tournament chess at grandmaster level or even at the top of the world, this structure is very seldom found. Spasski himself played the hippopotamus structure again in 1982 in a rapid chess game in Hamburg against the then world champion Anatoli Karpow , Spasski lost in 29 moves. The game was then televised.
Opening features and name variants
The main characteristics of this opening system are the two fianceted bishops and the restrained play on only three rows. Only after the complete development of the pieces is the confrontation with the opponent's pieces sought with pawn advances beyond the third row. Due to its restrained structure, this system can be played against practically any white (or black) sequence of moves and does not require a sound theoretical knowledge of individual opening variants.
Another name for this opening is the Feustel structure or Feustel-Hippopotamus structure , named after the FIDE master Bernd Feustel , who himself played this system more often and examined it in detail in his book "Openings - apart from all theory".
literature
- Bernd Feustel: Openings - apart from all theory. Beyer, 1982, ISBN 3-921202-88-4 .
- Andrew Martin : The Hippopotamus Rises. Batsford, 2006, ISBN 0-713489-89-8 .
Web links
- Example games and game collection ( Memento from August 8, 2010 in the Internet Archive )