I've Fallen In Love With The Colle

I guess we have to distinguish between the Colle opening and the Colle system. The Colle queen's pawn opening may be ok, but the system as played against anything is certainly not.

There is no opening which can be played against "anything".

Excluding 1. or 1... resigns, of course.

Yeah, I think that really should be "by Gilbert & Sullivan." 

Of course they aren't... and this is the main reason they should  first care about playing proper positional chess (and coherent endgames), and after that, they can care about "dynamic openings". At the start, their only ambition in the opening should be getting either as white, or black, a PLAYABLE position.

Oddly, that's still my only ambition... 

Hello Helltank

I like the Colle as well as the Max Lange. Geo Koltanowski knew Edgar Colle because ill health he died at a early age. The opening was named for him. Geo Koltanowski since 1936 did everything he could to promote the Colle system. He played it in every Blindfold exhibition and tournament that George partcipated in.

White's plan was to develop his pieces behind the P's. preparatory to advancing the Kings pawn to e3 and then to e4, e5. Black would be subjected to a serious king side attack unless he maintains the tension in the center.

On your 8. dxc5 was not the move to make. d pawn should be be supported by the c pawn. Best for black was Nd7 not c6.

The white Bishop on d3 should retreat to c2 keeping the structure and castle after the Bishop is tucked away.

One of the major arguments is the frequency of the Colle entering the ending with a majority of the pawns on the queen side.

I will compose several of Colles games of Kolty's and post them.

Bye for now

I don't play the Colle, and never did, but I don't see that mainline 1.e4 and 1.d4 are so obviously better IN THE PRACTICE for AVERAGE players. Like us: no really strong player would waste his time on this forum. If you disagree on that, you are surely not a grand master.

When I played 1.e4, I never really learned how to get ANYTHING against Caro-Kann, for instance. I studied the variations. Panov-attack: well, often, my isolated d-pawn got weak. Advance variation; often black got strong counter play. Against the Sicilian: I got some attacks, but very often my opponent knew his variations by heart and outplayed me automatically.

As a 1.d4 player, I amost never got anything against ortodox Queens Gambit. Only equal positions. THe same against Tartakover. And againts Nimzo. 

I played the English, and got nothing particular against the slav set-up.

Seriously; tell me exactly how you get a rock'n-roll-type-of-position against those system, and I will stop play the London.

Hello, Planet Earth here; we consider QGD as the least unbalanced type-of-position existing. In fact, it is our definition of BALANCED.

"Balanced" as in 'boring-to-death-completely-equal-Ortodox-exchanging-most-pieces-type of position, leading to a drawish endgame".  

You can tell that to Aronian. I'm sure he will laugh his ass off.

London is surely not a very good opening for white, theoretically, Black has several routes to equality. But pieces tend to stay on the board, and often blacks light-square-bishop is bad. And, white has a very stable centre.

Interesting that Aagaard played London several times in 2007. Yusupov played it, sometimes. Gata Kamsky. 

They are not exaclty 'suckers', if you know what I mean ... 

Well, put Khalifman on the black side, and it is a draw after 20 moves.

Well, Black is hard pressed to demonstrate equality in the QGD Exchange variation (the system with Nge2). That's why many players prefer the Alatortsev move order (3...Be7) which opens another can of worms.

Slav devotees have a problem precisely against 1.c4, as the 1.c4 c6 2.Nf3 d5 3.e3 system (without a quick d2-d4) is quite annoying to meet.

Seriously, you should not dismiss openings because you don't know how to handle them. Quite obviously you cannot blame the London for that, because all white is doing in the opening is putting his pieces on preset squares, and after that he just takes care not blundering something. This may be an OK strategy, but it hardly coinstitutes "a try for an opening advantage".

If you read my post again, you will see that I do not dismiss them. I am only saying that, from a practical point of view, it is not that easy to prove the white advantage in e.g., QGD. Or, against Nimzo.

I reckon that London is an unambiotios system. I play it anyway, to get time for studying endgames instead. It is a trade-off.

Look in the recommended lines in Khalifman's Opening for white according to Kramnik, on the QGD. Several resulting positions are according to him +=, but playing them aganst a decent engine shows very clearly that they are very difficult to handle in the practise, and they are to me extremely close to =. Think about it, often only one minor piece left, symmetric structure. And this is after having memorized 20+ moves (yes, I understand the basic underlying strategy of it). 

So, my question is; why bother? Why not simply go for something that is = right from the beginning, and save energy for the middle game. 

And, really; isn't Petroff very obviously at least as drawish as the typical mainline London? Or, Berlin defense? I am not saying that 1.e4 sucks, only that you may spend endless months of learning sharp 1.e4-lines (with gambits, sacrifices, etc) only to end up againsy these comepletey lifeless positions. Lifeless as in "London", "Colle".

Yes, we know. From a theoretical perspective. But if you have a 500kB brain, and can choose between Colle or filling 499kB with forced variations of Najdorf, what is your pick?

OK, the Petroff is "drawish". Black's main idea is to play as solidly as possible.

But the Berlin is highly challenging strategically, for both players. That's why it is so popular currently. There are no fireworks in it, but factly Black is playing to win in that Berlin Wall endgame- the position is sufficiently imbalanced, and both sides have soft spots.

And- White does not have to play 3.e3 against a KID or Dutch formation. He can deviate, an obvious way being 3.g3.

The Najdorf.

Obviously, I meant from a white perspective. Good to know that you would only know how to play decently against Najdorf, whereas you would be OUT-OF-MEMORY against virtually any other opening.