Hippopotamus In Reverse Catastrophe

 South African  chess player btropic played  soooo poorly with the White pieces that Black's seventh move Bf2 check leads to forced win.

In the diagrammed position, White his timidly set up what appears to be a Hippopotamus defense in reverse. Note that White's monarch is surrounded by its own forces in Epaulette fashion. He was duly punished with the attraction sacrifice Bishop capture King Bishop 2 pawn check in the old English descriptive notation. 

After Ng4 check, the a1 rook in the corner gets ingested and gets reactivated via c2 square. Would like to know if Alessio De Santis has ever essayed the Reverse Hippo and how he fared. 

Also why would a chess player play such a gutless, mindless opening with White?

Thomas Turtle: Bullet Chess Addict

 One Thomas Turtle has an extreme fondness for 1 minute bullet/blitz chess. As you can see from his finger notes, he has played close to 130,000 lightning chess games at the internet chess club. 

His passive play, as seen in the diagrammed position, gives him close to a lost position a mere 7 moves into the game! He placed his Horse on the e8 square and them played h6 with the Black pieces. This happened in a 3 minute game which I doubt he meant to play. I mean 3 minutes is an eternity for a bullet chess addict.  

It became obvious TommyTurtle played this sequence of insipid and thoughtless moves just to keep from losing before his 60 seconds of precious time expired! 

He obviously loves the Royal game and hates whining name calling players who are bad sports when they lose to the turtle in blitz chess. The friend of Sally Acorn in the city of Mobotropolis is a very weak player, but a good guy who just wants play without all the unnecessary drama.

Overdependence on Sodium Bicarbonate as it relates to Attacking Chess

I paused and reflected whether the former resident of North Pembrokeshire, Wales, United Kingdom would spit on the playing style of his online chess namesake Captain Evans.

United States player CaptEvans fianchettoed both his Prelates, placed both his Horses on the second rank, and made various overtures of unnecessary defensive maneuvering in the diagrammed position. The real Captain Evans was of Weaver Adams ilk. Adams, a San Francisco old era Master, published a book titled White to play and win with 1. e4. The openly homosexual Adams played aggressively making every effort to seize the initiative. The baking soda addict had no use for making Luft or waiting moves. This implies he was probably a top in the famous bathhouses near the Bay. It is consistent with the penetrating style of his play!

His much weaker successor makes only waiting moves hoping to pounce on an overstep in a style espoused by the famous Andy Soltis tome regarding the rewards of playing defense. Andy made a fantastic suggestion in his seminal work. He said the last line of defense is to MAKE YOUR OPPONENT WIN after you have exhausted all other remedies to save your losing/difficult position. I have saved many draw and actually won games with this tip alone!!!! 

The big difference here is ICC CaptEvans plays defense from move one with white or black which would make the real Captain Evans turn in his grave.

Passivity

The germs of defeat are spawned in passive play. Part of that is plagiarized and part is mine. A character at ICC named KingZinski(Polish I think) loves bending over buttocks full exposed and playing pusillanimous double fianchetto systems. 

In the position you see below black placed his horses at d7,e7. Did not place a pawn on the fourth rank even though White did not storm center with his pawns. The Modern and Pirc defenses are designed to punch back or counter strike against massive center and flank pawn surges by the first player. 

At least Indian player AjitChandra knows his play is overly passive and wants to correct it. The book by Grandmaster Rafael Leitão is a meritorious resource on patiently punishing players who play afraid and unwilling to take chances. Rafael Leitão is a weaker GM since any honest strong player knows games cannot be won out of the opening. Rafael is just trying to sell his book to the ignorant USCF players rated below 1500. 

Bogdan's textbook CRUSH OF Petrak Robert  is an example of passive play being a poor choice. 

Ivan Drago pays chess!!

Dolph Lundgren,Dolph Lundgren......Dolph Lundgren the handsome studly Swedish actor kept popping into my feeble mind during this Internet Chess Club 3 minute game where United States of America player IvanoDrago11 opened with the very passive setup you see in the picture below.

However, the chess version of this aggressive pugilist was the dead opposite not placing any of his pieces or pawns beyond the third rank! Who am I to complain though as IvanoDrago11 has induced me to overextend countless times and then dominated me in one sided end games. I did manage to exploit my space advantage by crushing him and his provocative play today. He ended up castling queenside behind a tattered pawn structure and was slowly suffocated in a Karpovian endgame.

Guys like Nimzovitch  and Damian Lemos love this crouching "scared way" of playing our Royal Game in true Pterodactyl Defense style. Their mindset is good defense is as equally rewarded as an attacking manner of play, but I still wonder if people who play this way are gay bottoms? Also, solid performers and practitioners of he Hippo include  Alessio De Santis,Eric Briffoz and Gary Gifford who market their books on the opening with phrases darkly, deceitfully, dreadfully, duplicitous or even dangerously deceptive. They disingenuously recommend the White Side of the opening hoping that Black will feel the need to refute it by overextending.

Sexual preferences aside, one has to admire this Hypermodern mindset and ones willingness to risk getting blown off the board for the reward of sneering at a blushing opponent for being over aggressive! So hip hip hooray for the Hippopotamus!!!

Oh yeah, all of your got the Rocky boxing movie reference?!