Chess grandmasters keep saying "The hippo opening is bad", why?!?

The above image is a tier list made by gothamchess and hikaru (they actually made 3, one for beginners, interemediate, and GMs, hippo was low tier on all 3 lists). Other titled players have also made similiar tier lists where the hippo is very low on the list. 

However, do you know which opening has been able to draw against torch/luna/komodo/stockfish? The hippo. If you ever watch hikaru or magnus or super GMs play against chess engines they always play the hippo. In fact, the closed position is so hard to penetrate that you almost essentially have to sacrifice a knight or bishop to open up the structure. We are talking about the best computers in the world, unable to win against this position, yet for humans, who are rated 1000-2000 elo lower, this opening is "bad".... HOW?  How can an opening be good against the best chess engine in the world who can beat the best player in the world 99/100 times yet the opening is bad vs humans?

It seems very solid, it seemingly has no weeknesses (from my experience at least), a good portion of my loses while black are due to time (I suck at time management), and I've also seen many many MANY super gm's employ it online. I just don't undestand what's so bad about this opening it's very similiar to king's/queen's indian and those are considered god tier openings.

Can someone enlighten me? 
PS: yes I know I am low elo, I started at 500 a month ago and I'm now almost 800 (rated 1700 in puzzles though) so I am slowly growing.

bc king's indian setup and old indian setups are just better. they are hypermodern, but not too hypermodern. hippo is too slow. it takes 8-10 moves if we don't count castling to setup until you can attack the center. king's indian takes only 6 moves until you can attack the center(and you can play e5 much sooner actually), old indian takes only 3 moves to build(only 2 in ukrainian variation). You give white too much time to enjoy their life. It's like farming forest for 40 mins in dota 2(sorry for that analogy lmao) instead of standing mid

But King's/Queen's indian have not been able to draw against chess engines, clearly the hippo is superior in SOME way if this is the ONLY opening that can draw against chess engines that play the best moves. There is something that the community is missing. Or more likely, something that I'm missing. 
Also yes the opening takes a million moves but the beauty of it is there is no series of moves that the opponent can do that compromizes the opening, unless they want to ram a bishop into your pawns there's really no way of punishing it, setting up against it, or really stopping your opponent from playing it. To me the oppening is un-breakable, assuming you know how to react to the 2 or 3 "anti-hippo" tactics that exist, however they are not forced and all they do is lock up the position if the hippo player knows the respond to them.

If white has enough time, hippo cracks like an egg. You give them more space. space = more place to maneuer your pieces. White will be faster than you. You defend from one threat, they switch to the other and you aren't fast enough to mobilise there

Perhaps reaching equality and striking out is to hard. It is super defensive for long periods before you make the critical pawn break. If Hippo was a strong opening Super GMs would be playing it in major tournaments, candidate tournaments and world championships. I have seen Magnus use it in Title Tuesday. That is all I recall. He won that day a lot though.

"If Hippo was a strong opening Super GMs would be playing it in major tournaments, candidate tournaments and world championships."
Here is how Spassky played in a World Championship match:

https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1106734

Chess.com is a stupid app!!!

It is because the Hippo stereotypes the moves before you even observe what White does. There is no "one size fits all". To begin with, the Modern Defense is flaky at best. But then, after 1.e4 g6 2.d4 Bg7 3.Nf3 d6 4.Nc3 a6, the Hippo is ONLY really usable when White plays a4, in order to prevent ...b5 by Black. Now Black plays 5...b6 before White gets in 6.a5 with a bind. In return for not getting in ...b5, the b4-square is a weakness for White. Without that weakness, what are you doing playing only b6 and not b5? Oh, that's right. NOTHING!

This is all covered in Tiger's Modern, a book from almost 20 years ago.

Without a4 by White, why are you not playing ...b5? In the Modern Defense, your attack is on the Queenside. There is no reason to sit back and do nothing. It is even more critical when White plays Austrian setups with f4. He will run you over in the center and kingside while you sit back and do nothing, waiting and hoping for some over-extension that won't happen if White knows what he is doing.

Many amateurs don't know what they are doing, but GMs do, and that is why you see lowly 1600s playing that ridiculous defense and not GMs outside of the one lone case where it is ok, where White has committed to a4.

Hi!

I agree that the Hippo is difficult to break especially to unprepared players- like it happend with Petrossain against Spassky!. I play it sometimes as a side-line of the Modern Defense. The problem is that it can be quite passive. That means that in itself does not pose any direct threats to the opponent. Once you try to push you pawn for a centre break -like ...e5 then you think why you ever preferred the Hyppo vs. the KID or the Modern proper on the first place.

But in the hands of an expert the Hippo can be dangerous, especially against opponents that lack of patience and overextend their position. Then the counterattack can be powerful.

The Hippo is a side-line of the Modern. I prefer the Modern proper which is more active-may I say ferocious. Just in case you are interested, I leave the link to my post on the Modern Defense here: https://www.chess.com/blog/maafernan/opening-repertoire-the-modern-defense

Good luck!

Two draws in the 66 final. Has it been played since? I play the Dutch, Botvinnik was the last to play it in a world championship final. Not dissing it, just saying GMs don't have it at the top of their list. Spassky being the only exception I am aware of.

I also want to mention that Canadian GM Eric Hansen reached 3000 elo on this site with a fresh low elo account, and did a speedrun playing nothing but hippo on both white and black. Obviously a GM can reach 3000 with almost any opening (see hikaru bongcloud) but if it was as bad as the grob or 1.b4 then I seriously doubt he would be able to reach 3000. At least the bongcloud is 1 move and then you play normally, this requires a setup for the first 10 moves. if it was truly bottom tier opening I don't think someone would be able to reach that high with it.
I'm not saying the hippo is the best opening or anything like that. I'm just saying it is extremely underrated in my opinion. 
And again, for whatever the reason is (I truly don't know), chess engines that play 1000 elo better than magnus carlson have an extremely hard time defeating it. I think there is some merit there.

bongcloud is immediate -2.5

Hippo is -0.8 or - 1.7 max

hippo is ok, but other existing hypermoderns are just better

KID and QID often reach draws at the highest engine levels.

I can't say about the Hippo, though, as I haven't seen it played very much in engine events ...

I'm not talking about engine vs engine, I am talking about Super GM's vs engines. Unless it is a completely new way of making an engine, an engine is usually forced to play an exact opening (first as white, then as black) and then "is allowed" to play on it's own from that point. The games (including KID QID) will generally be a draw. The vast majority of Engine games are draws. I am saying that for whatever reason (I am trying to figure out the reason in this thread), when super GM's play komodo/torch/etc, it is extremely common for them to play the hippo for a draw. So the question becomes: How come the hippo is used if it's "low tier", and, if the hippo is commonly used (which it is), is it secretely "high tier"? Because even engines struggle against it?
Either the hippo is some secret anti-engine tech, and it's garbage but somehow even though it's garbage the engines struggle against it, or, the hippo is a solid and (dare I say) STRONG opening that has been severely underestimated, and the engines are showing us that.

Players way weaker than GMs crushed me when I played the Hippo, in the following way:

They pry-open the kingside by force.

If pawns aren't enough, you sac. a horse there, all in all, the kingside can get opened by force.

Lichess.org, rapid, about 2000 rated players.

Try it out yourself:

You are a human, you understand that black doesn't have to take a rook if White offers it, so the game is a dead draw. Stockfish doesn't get that. It shows a plus score.

Same here:

The program thinks it has an edge, it doesn't understand that Black can move only on dark squares and checkmate the king, it only sees that it is lost, 3 moves away from the mate (which is a forced one anyway).

That's why is chess they're called 'engine' - only power, no wisdom.

---

I can win against a program with the Stonewall Dutch, but a human would play f3 + e4 and destroy my structure. An engine will not - they are built for an open middlegame / endgame - seeking tactics.

The hippo is objectively bad because it is one of those small center openings and by nature most of them are worse for the small center opening.

The only reason people can draw engines with the hippo is because they make it into a closed position, where the engines reasoning can't be used as well. I'm pretty sure this is borderline impossible nowadays with neural network engines. It doesn't make it a good opening.

- "Seems very solid, with no weakness (in my experience at least)"

The weakness is that it has minimal presence in the center. That's the weakness. It's not necessarily a glaring weakness, and it doesn't mean people can exploit it at your level, but it doesn't mean the weakness doesn't exist.

- "How can this be bad for humans?"

Because it's easier to play white than black. Unless you're a weird person like me who basically only played hypermodern openings for several years in a row. It's just more intuitive to play as white, so not only is it better for them objectively, it's easier to find good moves. You don't need to be a grandmaster to see that putting d4 e4 and maybe even c4/f4 and developing pieces and castling is a good opening setup.

- "I've seen many GMs employ it online"

doesn't make it a good opening, mainly because it's online. You can see NMs playing on par with GMs online very frequently, even though they are leagues apart in otb chess. Hell I started playing 1.a3 to get out of my slump in blitz and started winning most of my games.

70% winrate with 1.a3, but it doesn't mean the opening is good.

Also, IIRC Hikaru had a queen-odds speedrun where he got to like, 2000 or something ridiculous. Does that mean all 1000s should just randomly move their queen, because it doesn't matter if it gets taken? I mean, after all, Hikaru could do it up to 2000, so why should it matter for people 1000 points lower rated? Do you see where the gap in the logic appears? It's easier to play with a queen than without. It's easier to play the game when you control the center than when you don't.

Now I would like to say that all this being said, don't let it discourage you from playing the hippo if you really enjoy playing it. It's not like some openings where you're just losing by force, to the point your resignation is still theory (englund gambit im looking at you)

I mean for three years I played the alekhine's defense. A lot of people told me it wasn't a good opening (they're right) and that it would be hard to get to 2000 with it (some said impossible). So I went and got to 2000 USCF with the alekhine's defense. And I played the czech benoni for a year; I was told it isn't a good opening (it's actually garbage) and that people OTB would punish me for playing the opening. So I went and beat my first 2100 USCF with the czech benoni. In fact otb I've only lost against a 2100 once in the Czech benoni; I have about five wins with it against 2100s.

All it means is that an opening can be bad, but if you understand how to play it, it won't matter the majority of the time.

Now do I still play those openings? No, because I want to become a master, and they're not going to be stumped when they see those openings (a big reason why I kept playing them).

For Grandmasters, it's probably bad.