My Favourite Game Of. Number 29. Edgard Colle. And Study The Colle System with Colle!!

Afternoon everyone. Quick, cheap and cheerful today!!

Taken an afternoon off from the realities of life for those of my age to throw this together - got 5 hours, and the feature game will take at least 3 to annotate, so no frills stuff today!

Recently my dear friend @kamalakanta noted that there was a new book out on the tragically short lived figure Edgard Colle - the one with an opening named after him. I don't have the book, but there is a lovely review by another dear friend - Richard James - that can be found here.

https://britishchessnews.com/2021/12/15/edgard-colle-caissas-wounded-warrior/ 

While you ae there, check out Richard's other work. He is quite brilliant If he ever gives up his other chess work and goes into writing on the history of the game full time, he will quickly become one of the elite. Nice guy, and amazing researcher.

I do have an old book on Colle - this one.

 It has a nice little appreciation of Colle by Hans Kmoch  A brief extract.

''When it is a question of struggling for money and fame, for honour and achievement, the best of men often give way and follow the instinct for self-preservation. That is natural and not ugly. But this was never true of Colle: it was impossible for him. For his courtesy, his kindness, his chivalrous unselfishness - these qualities were not acquired - they were innate. In victory and defeat he remained a cavalier.

Poor Colle was sick - I never saw him in any other state...... I never heard him use the excuse that he was ill.....

All his games were hard fought, and lengthy, difficult and tiring games were part of his style. Only his stupendous will-power carried him through these games. His spirit ruled his body''.

I have a mass of Colle games in various tournament books, and they bear out Kmoch's statement. he was a fighter, a creator and an artist combined.

Rather than my usual discussion of the player in these 'my favourite game of' posts, instead I will quickly throw in some of his games with the system named after him, then get to my favourite. No notes - just a load of quickly assembled chess to enjoy by a fighter and an artist.

I will begin with his most famous game, against a famous theoretical investigator, who pushes the line between theoretical concepts - hypermodern defence - and practice just a fraction too far, an is blown away by the magnificence of Colle's chess imagination.

O.K. Let's have a bit of fun. If you have some time to spare, see if you can do the stuff i do - annotate this game without using an engine and submit it in the comments - you might find it a fun experience!

Let's rattle along.

A quick, rare photo for that game, featuring O'Hanlon.

One relevant to the feature game - if I ever get there!!

That was rather nice! 

Another .Bf5.

And another.

Will throw in one with a picture - same ...Bf5.

Some class. And no, despite being asked more than once, I am not going to spend most of the rest of my life writing the definitive book on the loser!!

One against this man.

So, let's finally get to my favourite Colle game. When I got my hands of the tournament book - I love tournament books!! - I spent hours on this one. The page is covered with margin notes. As my regular readers will know, I love real chess fights, and games where I can't work out what is going on!! This one is right in that catagory. And we have a picture of the game in progress.

So, if you are still with me, enjoy the game!!