The hippo!

Hmm. For me I would not play it against 1.e4. 1.d4. 1.c4 1.f4. 1.Nf3. 1Nc3. 1.b3 or 1.g3. But I would use it as a base to get counter play and prepare an asymetrical position against the other openings with the intent of c5 or f5 being the defining pawn push once white establishes which of the c-f pawns they want to push to the fourth rank. Note how well the Dutch and Sicilian games can be transposed to from the Hippo in that instance.

The thing with these openings is that they don't work often

Me personally, I don't really like the hippo for white, as for black it is more easily transposable to something like the king's Indian. In general black's hippo will be more versatile, but that's just my opinion. I have played a grand total of one hippo game with white, and somewhere upwards of 70 with black. I think it's a great opening, and it is often mistaken for being passive while it actually sets up strong attacking possibilities for the middlegame. This is a textbook example of a hypermodern opening, which lets white have the center for free while you prepare something on your end. Check out the YouTube channel "The Chess Giant", where the hippo got this guy all the way to NM rank, playing it exclusively as white and black. Again, I think it's a really solid opening, and it's pretty much all I play as black now.

I will check out that channel

Hippo plays better as Black. If you need a win with White there are better openings.

It’s funny this thread popped up.

I have been playing the Hippo Defense recently.

I even had crazy win vs. a player 2.4k+

A lot of errors and scary tactics from both sides.

I end up winning though.