I've Fallen In Love With The Colle

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".  

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.

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?

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.

That would still be an improvement over playing the Colle

Aren't all GMs "strong tactical" players?  Anyhow, I think the Colle's dull reputation comes from club players playing it in a uncreative/sterotyped fashion and not from a GM somewhere finding interesting ideas in it.

That said, I've nothing against the Colle or its practitioners, and appreciate facing an opening that's (somewhat) less liable to devolve into a memorization contest.

I still thing playing white against Petroff is more boring than experimenting with an off-beat d-pawn opening. What about Veresov? 

There is an Book at Everyman; I have been thinking about bying it, just to see if I like it. 

I see  

Winning some games in style over that irritating Sicilian, while in others going down in flames in simple theoretical rook endings ... 

Perhaps there's a language barrier here, but I don't really equate a "strong tactical" player with a "tactical monster".  The latter term in much, well, stronger, though I feel a little pedantic pointing it out.  Anyhow, I'd ask about GMs that aren't "positionally bright", but I've a feeling that term will prove equally slippery. 

Anyhow, I think the idea of "dull" chess openings is probably deceptive.  For instance, Black seems to now regularly play c4 d6 d4 e5! with a view to winning the queenless engame, and of course there's that Capablanca guy...

It's too bad if there are people who say the colle or some other "system opening" is boring, yet these same people also rarely draw when playing it or against it; and if they are amateurs, then I'm pretty confident that they do in fact rarely draw in them.

The point is that, although sometimes an opening advantage can be helpful (or not being in a bad opening position), most of the excitement of the game comes from the play itself. If Alekhine played this line against a computer, maybe nothing fun would happen. But if he played some master it's highly conceivable that he would find fireworks quickly, simply based on the classic idea of brutally punishing the slightest mistake. That strategy works at every level.

Similarly, it's easy to start with a sharp sicilian, then when you get out of book, make a lot of bland developing moves -- very typical in amateur play. And then the game becomes "boring" (although I personally don't find any position boring).

Interesting that Capablanca played the London, once in a while. The "boring" opening. The BoringIdiot plays it too.