A Colle-Zuckertort question.

From my understanding, the Colle-Zuckertort begins after some combination of 1.d4 d5 2.Nf3 Nf6, on move 3 now, White plays e3 and if Black plays e6 the game has entered the Colle.

But this move e6 seems counter-intuitive, why would anyone play it and block in their light squared bishop? This is the last move that would occur to me in a game playing as Black, and indeed I see from this opening explorer here

http://www.365chess.com/opening.php?m=6&n=125&ms=d4.Nf6.Nf3.d5.e3&ns=7.14.20.13.125

that developing the bishop with Bf5 of Bg4 score much higher for Black and actually 3...e6 seems not only counterintuitive, but also statistically it is one of the worst moves,  yet somehow it is the most commonly played.

So why have so many games continued with 3...e6?

Another question I have specifically for people who play the Colle-Zuckertort is how often does Black play 3...e6 here, does this opening explorer reflect reality? Also, in general, what have been your overall experiences playing the Colle-Zuckertort?

I play 3Bf5 after 1d4 d5 2Nf3 Nf6. I find it quite effective against the Colle as it prevents Black getting any attacking play with Bd3. I think the reason that Black plays e6 is that White can still transpose to a Queens Gambit with 4 c4. Hence, their third non e6 move may not be that good in that situation.

3...Bf5! is a good choice for Classical Slav players, as 4 Bd3 is totally harmless, and the best move 4 c4 c6 simply transposes to the "Slow Slav".

Otherwise, for non Slav players, 3...e6 equalizes comfortably, so long as Black knows to meet 9 Qe2 with 9...Qc7 in the Classical Colle, and is aware of the ...Ne7 idea in the Zukertort.

Playing ...c5 before ...e6 needlessly complicates things imo, because White gets options of playing dc and going into some strange reversed Noteboom thing which is far from clear.

Thanks for input everyone. I've switched from 1.e4 to 1.d4 and all this is so new and confusing for me, but at the same time wonderful as well.

@MainlineNovelty, "the strange reversed Noteboom thing", lol, my thoughts exactly. I've had a few games with that playing White today against my computer, if I'm not mistaken this is where instead of doing any development both players just push and exchange pawns on the queenside? My first impression is I don't want to play that as White. I can't imagine trying to play the reversed side of this a tempo down with Black if that's what the normal Noteboom is. Apparently the passed queenside pawns are supposed to be worth something but the position just looks scary to me.

3.e3 and 3....e6 closes one diagonal but it opens two others, the diagonal for the Kings Bishop and a diagonal for the queen.  The entire point of the Colle proper (from whites perspective and I suspect its the rationale for plack when they play 3...e6) is to refrain from putting your bishop outside the pawn chain because you want to retain the two bishops and not be forced to exchange one of them.  The dark squared bishop often takes the long diagonal in the Colle Zuckertort as does the light squared bishop in the Meran for black to emphasise control over e5 and e4 respectively.  As a Colle player myself ( I only play Colle Zuckertort against Kingside Fianchettos) I always welcome moves like 3...Bg4 and 3...Bf5 because we will simply abandon the Colle and once black locks the bishop outside of the pawn chain with ...e6 white has a ready made queen side attack with c4 and Qb3.

The Colle itself is pretty awesome to play because it seeks to open the two central files and whites idea is a better ending with a queenside majority or a kingside attack which is always fun.

Thanks for the info Robbie.

It's interesting you say you only use the Colle-Zuckertort against kingside fianchettoes, as all the Colle-Zucktertort material I have says you basically have to play another opening if Black plays g6.

I'm liking the Colle so far, it's more multi-faceted than I first thought though.

When I first looked into it I thought it was the most attacking opening of all time, as there were all these games where Black was getting smashed off the board with bishop sacrifices, and the covers of David Rudel's books are all these soldiers storming a chess board, etc. Now it kind of seems like you only get to go for a kingside attack if Black doesn't use one of these "anti-colle" systems to transpose you into some kind of Queen's Gambit or Slav.  It's bad in a way, but I guess it's  good in a way too, because it makes the opening richer. "The Colle-System, an opening so rich it's the d4 Ruy Lopez!"

I think I'm going to alternate playing 1.e4 and 1.d4 though since I have a lot of fun with the Danish Gambit. I didn't really realize how exciting the Danish Gambit was until I started playing 1.d4 and getting transposed into weird Schlechter-Slavs and Queen Gambit's accepted. These openings can be exciting too, but I think you have to be in the right mood for them.

Its always the issue for Colle players, what to do against the kingside fianchetto, Colle himself as well as Koltanowski (spelling?) played systems with their own kingside fianchetto against black.  The problem for white is that black can conceal his/her intentions and play a delayed kingside fianchetto which is annoying if you have already placed your bishop on d3 where it subsequently bites on granite.  To reduce blacks possibilities after 1.d4 Nf6 try 2.Nbd2 instead of 2.Nf3 and black has to either allow an immediate e4 next turn or prevent it with d5.  Either way we have reduced his possibilities and if black chooses to prevent with d5 then the Grunfeld set up is not quite as good for him because we have not played a pawn to c4 and can simply play c3 instead and its difficult for them to chip away at the center as they do in the Grunefeld proper.

The best thing about the Colle is that you can play it as black, where its simply the semi slav and many of the ideas are the same.  I have not read Rundels books but he makes a good case for using the Meran with reversed colours (the Colle pheonix attack).  I watched a youtube video on it a while back.

I apologise for my spelling.

Smith & Hall and Rudel refer to g6 on move 3 by Black as "the Sneaky Grunfeld"

As for 2.Nbd2, I actually don't mind most cases where Black plays a g6 as many times White gets to play the Barry Attack opening, but with 2.Nbd2 the Barry Attack would be off the table because in it, the dark sqaure bishop is developed to f4. The opening goes like this 1.d4 Nf6 2.Nf3 g6 3.Nc3 d5 4.Bf4, so as you can see Nbd2 would take away this option.

It's a wonderful world of d-pawn attacks isn't it?

I have a feeling I'll do better playing d4 against higher rated opposition, however. Perhaps I'll play d4 only against people higher rated than me and e4 against people who are about equal to me. Do you think it's true that by playing 1.d4 we're somehow stymying our chess development because "we're not learning tactics", that always seemed absurd to me. I learn my tactics from doing puzzles at chess tempo, not from playing 1.e4 or not.

I've tried to like the Colle-Zukertort, but I get my butt kicked every time I play it against someone that knows what they're doing. Against the kingside fianchetto I aim everything at the kingside and shove my h pawn up the board.  

I'm sure you've had some good wins as well though.

I have to say, the more I play the Colle-Zuckertort the more I like it. I just got the following position in a Colle-Zuckertort game I played today.

For me one of the most challenging things is during the course of a kingside attack, knowing when to play for mate and when to allow a queen exchange and "cash in your chips" for some smaller late middle-game / endgame advantage. In the game I made the wrong decision and it was drawn after 56 moves.