Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Hippopotamus Defence

This page is an archive of the discussion about the proposed deletion of the article below. This page is no longer live. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page rather than here so that this page is preserved as an historic record.
The result of the debate was keep. No interest in my suggestion to move. Sjakkalle 08:45, 1 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Hippopotamus Defence

Hippopotamus Defence should be deleted because the article is technically inaccurate. The page can't be repaired because Hippopotamus Defense is not a well defined term in the chess literature.

The opening given in the article is not commonly called the hippo. (There appears to be only one fringe website that claims this move sequence is called the hippo.) Most commonly hippo is used in the sense of the Hippopotamus System, which is a Black hedgehog formation featuring a double fianchetto. Unlike precisely defined openings like the Ruy Lopez, the Hippopotamus System is a type of postion, not a specific move sequence or even a specific position. A Hippopotamus System page could be added, but no content from the existing page is useful for this purpose. --Quale 06:17, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)

• Quale put the vfd tag on this article, but it seems that he did not submit it to the vfd-page, so I have done it. If the problem merely is that the article has the wrong name, move to the correct name (unknown to me) is perhaps the best measure. I would like to add however that this opening is very rarely played, even in amateur tournaments, so I will leave you to decide on the notability of this opening. Just to make it clear: my vote is currently at move. Sjakkalle 09:59, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)
• Merge stubs on individual chess openings. Radiant_* 10:49, Mar 21, 2005 (UTC) Convinced by Sjakalle's reasoning, so keep. Radiant_* 12:30, Mar 22, 2005 (UTC)

I recommend that we do not merge. Some weeks ago we finished the unmerging of the chess openings article since it was too big. Sjakkalle 11:06, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)

• Keep unusual chess openings, so long as they have references. Google provides plenty; the "fringe website" cited in the article and above is the first hit, but hardly the only one. —Korath (Talk) 20:02, Mar 21, 2005 (UTC)
• Keep separate if merging is incovenient. Kappa 21:14, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)
• Keep since it has Google references. Zzyzx11 01:12, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)
  • Most of those references are links to the single Bogon page or copies of wikipedia. Others don't give enough info to tell what opening moves they are referring to so are no help, and others still give opening moves different and not related to the Bogon/wikipedia version. The only somewhat authorative sites are [1] or copies derived from the same source material (apparently an openings list from gnuchess). Still, I've reconsidered a bit. This opening isn't notable enough to deserve an entry of its own (note that the article doesn't have anything to actually say about the opening itself), and I agree with Sjakkalle that we don't want it on the main chess opening page. The main page is primarily devoted to general opening strategy and popular openings and is already medium-long, and needs more material added to cover the history of the evolution of opening theory. Instead, perhaps Hippopotamus Defence could be made to redirect to a new B00 Openings page similar to the way that Amar Opening and others redirect to A00. Or perhaps there should be a single Irregular Chess Openings page that could include ECO codes A00, B00, C00, D00 and E00. Looking just at the B00 section, we have Hippopotamus defence, Corn stalk defence, Lemming defence, Fred, Barnes defence, Fried fox defence, Carr's defence, Reversed Grob (Borg/Basman defence/macho Grob), St. George (Baker) defence, Owen defence, Guatemala defence, Colorado counter, and Neo-Mongoloid defence. Of these, really only the St. George is notable (GM Tony Miles used it to defeat then-World Champion Karpov). But the names are cute, and it probably wouldn't hurt to have them as redirects to a single page. In addition to the redirects from these opening names to a new Irregular Chess Openings page, the existing chess opening page could link to it and I could pare down the list of openings there. How does that sound? --Quale 01:37, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Well C00, D00 and E00 are not really "irregular" and the most common B00 is the Nimzowitsch Defense, which is reasonably regular and respectable if somewhat uncommon. If we merge this anywhere I think merging it to Irregular chess openings is a better option. Sjakkalle 09:27, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Have you noticed that irregular openings have a phletora of names attached to them? I made an article on the Dunst Opening today and have already discovered three alternate names. Compare that to the popular Sicilian Defence which only has no alternate names. Sjakkalle 10:30, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)

• Keep, and expand. Unusual but notable opening move. Megan1967 05:29, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep is possible, but expand isn't — there's nothing notable to say about this opening except that it has a cute name. It's almost never played. --Quale 14:40, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)

This page is now preserved as an archive of the debate and, like some other VfD subpages, is no longer 'live'. Subsequent comments on the issue, the deletion, or the decision-making process should be placed on the relevant 'live' pages. Please do not edit this page.