New Opening Strategy: Is This Original or Already Known?

Hello everyone,

I recently came up with this new chess opening and I’m curious to know if anyone has seen it before or if it’s something original that I’ve developed. Below is a detailed description of the opening, an image showing the position and an example game.

Opening Description
My opening follows this sequence of moves:

1. e3
2. d3
3. Nd2
4. Ne2
5. a3
6. h3
7. b4
8. Bb2
9. g4
10. Bg2

The idea behind this opening is to develop pieces flexibly and gain control on both sides of the board. The early moves prepare a solid expansion on the queenside and kingside, aiming to create space and activate the pieces.

Position Image
Here’s an image showing the complete position after the opening sequence. This should help visualize the setup and structure of the opening.

Practical Example
I played a game using this opening. Here are the moves:

I’d like to know if anyone has seen a similar setup in other openings, or if this is indeed a new opening. Also, any suggestions on how to improve this opening would be greatly appreciated!

Thank you for your time and feedback!

This is a poor sort of Hippopotamus Defense.
a3 b4 and h3 g4 take 4 moves and weaken the position.
b3 and g3 take 2 moves and keep it solid.
https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1106728 
https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1106734

- play longer time controls and think more carefully about your moves

- I think the hippopotamus is a good setup for you at your level... usually it's played as black but you could play it as white too. But you should play it as it's normally played, you don't push b4 / g4 immediately, that just creates weaknesses and gives the opponent an easy line of attack... you play g3 / b3, often along with a3 and / or h3, and you'll respond to what your opponent is doing. Like in the game you push b4 but the knight just immediately takes your pawn. Not very good. The idea of the pawn setup is to remain flexible and counter what your opponent does using key pawn breaks, pawn breaks which generally won't just lose your pawns.

- generally speaking you don't always play the same moves, your moves depend on the opponent. With this setup you can usually play the same set of moves, but there will be cases where your opponent does something and you can respond to it in a better way.

Thank you both for your feedback and for introducing me to the Hippopotamus Defense! I’ll try following the advice to play b3 and g3 instead of a3, h3, b4, and g4. I’ll also try the Hippopotamus Defense itself to see how it works for me. Your suggestions will be very useful, and I’ll start applying them in my next games. Thanks again!

that is the hippopotamus defense. what you showed is like 2 moves off from the hippo, namely the b4 / g4 should be b3 / g3

I was not aware of this. That's why I asked this:

this specific set up is what i call the hyper-hippopatamus. hyper because you advanced both g and b pawns one extra square which gives you some hypermodern attacking possibilities, (e.g kicking off an essential center knight as a defender)

as a system? its bad, its basically a slower and less solid hippo.

However.... they are some rare cases where this formation may actually be ok. I remember a game once where i played 1.b3 and my opponent countered with a london formation, one of the remedies agaisnt it, is to play d3 nd2, (sometimes with qe2) to prepare e4, well, in the end i got h3 and g4 and practically got the hyper-hippo set up, and engine gave it a modest 0.3+ for white. white actually got a good game going 0-0-0, ne5,f4 , etc.

but thats chess. evals are on a case by case basis and this is is just too slow and liable to have holes if you try to play for it like a system.

Thank you for introducing me to the "Hyper-Hippopotamus" concept! I understand the drawbacks of playing it as a system, but I appreciate you sharing the rare cases where it might work. I'll keep this in mind and experiment with it in the right situations. Thanks again for your advice!