THE HIPPOPOTAMUS RISES: The Re-emergence of a Chess Opening

Author: Andrew Martin

Batsford (2005)

www.chrysalisbooks.co.uk

140 pages

$21.95

Reviewed by IM John Donaldson 

What mammal kills more people in Africa than any other? Guess a lion or an elephant and you would be wrong. It’s the plant eating but very territorial hippopotamus that is the surprise answer and the subject of a new book by English IM Andrew Martin – THE HIPPOPOTAMUS RISES. No, Martin has not become a zoologist; rather he makes the case that the formation where Black advances most if not all his pawns to the third rank, barely visible on the board like a hippo poking up above the water, deserves more respect.

The sequence, which often starts, but is not limited to 1...g6, 2...Bg7 and 3...d6 followed by ...e6 and ...Ne7, has been played for more than one hundred years but Martin attributes its modern beginnings to the English amateur J.C. Thompson who wrote a book on it in 1957. Thompson got original positions but was not terribly successful with the Hippo, but the Czechoslovakian IM player Max Ujtelky gave it respectability in the 1960s even playing it against the great Boris Spassky. The latter thought enough of Ujtelky’s treatment that he tried it against Petrosian in their 1966 World Title match.

The lack of practical examples means that THE HIPPOPOTAMUS RISES is not your typical opening book the way a work on the Sveshnikov Sicilian might be. The emphasis here is on ideas and Martin examines them via thirty-nine well-annotated games. Chapters are arranged by the way White sets up his pieces, whether it be with Bc4, the Austrian Attack looking f4, Be3 or Bg5, quite setups with e4, d4, c3 and Nf3 and so forth. The Pirc and Modern Defense’s have been influenced by the Hippo and Martin spends plenty of time checking out 1.e4 g6 2.d4 Bg7 3.Nc3 d6 4.f4 e6 which has been tested by several 2600 GMs.

I found THE HIPPOPOTAMUS RISES to be interesting reading and just the thing for players who like to go their own way, but it left me with one question. All the material examined by Martin featured White’s c-pawn on c2 or c3. What happens if White plays c4, d4 and e4? Clearly transpositions to the King’s Indian, English and Modern Defenses  abound but does Black have a way to keep play in pure Hippo lines when White has plenty of reign for pawn play on the queenside? Perhaps a second volume on the Hippopotamus by Martin will answer this question.