Saturday, February 25, 2017

Reversed Hippo or White Hippo (Part 9)

Light notes by Stockfish 8

Friday, February 24, 2017

Reversed Hippo or White Hippo (Part 8)

Light notes by Stockfish 8

Thursday, February 23, 2017

Reversed Hippo or White Hippo (Part 7)

Light notes by Stockfish 8

Wednesday, February 22, 2017

Reversed Hippo or White Hippo (Part 6)

Tuesday, February 21, 2017

Reversed Hippo or White Hippo (Part 5)

Light notes by Stockfish 8

Monday, February 20, 2017

Reversed Hippo or White Hippo - (Part 4)

Light notes by Stockfish 8

Sunday, February 12, 2017

Reversed Hippo or White Hippo - (Part 3)

Light notes by Stockfish 8

Reversed Hippo or White Hippo (part 2)

Light notes by Stockfish 8

Reversed Hippo or White Hippo?

Have you ever thought of playing the Reversed Hippo or the Hippo as White?
Well...a few strong players did. And in this and the next posts, we will show a few games by IM Jens Ove Fries Nielsen, GM Pavel Blatny, WGM Marta Michna, IM Aleksandar Wohl and the late FM Bernd Feustel 
Advantages

  • surprise weapon;
  • probably no published articles/books on this opening;
Disadvantages
  • As White moves first, it has the obligation to be active and attack. Playing the White Hippo...you play as you were Black;
As the above mentioned adventurous players will demonstrate, the White Hippo is playable and they won many games with it.
Is it worth a try?
Ok let's start with Jens Ove Fries Nielsen vs. Joerg Hickl where a fully grown White Hippo was shown
For the light notes we were assisted by Stockfish 8

Jens Ove Fries Nielsen wins the 26th Erfurter Schachfestival.

At the end of 2016 IM Jens Ove Fries Nielsen won the 26th Erfurter Schahfestival.
It was quite a strong tournament, as you can see from the starting rank:
This is the final ranking crosstable:
And what follows is a typical Fries Nielsen game :-) as you can see from the original position arisen after a few moves