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THE COLLE-SYSTEM CD
DAS COLLE-KOLTANOWSKI SYSTEM

THE COLLE-SYSTEM CD
Author: Dimitrij Oleinikov

ChessBase (2003)

DAS COLLE-KOLTANOWSKI SYSTEM
Author: Valeri Bronznik

Kania (2003)

Reviewed by John Watson

 

Though I haven't examined either of these studies on the Colle Opening thoroughly, I did skim through both and feel that they are worthy of mention. Neither work promotes a repertoire for White in the Colle, yet both could be used to form a repertoire without much extra effort.

The Bronznik book (DAS COLLE-KOLTANOWSKI SYSTEM) is in German, which means that his many expositions will only be comprehensible to those with at least a high-school knowledge of German, but the sample games and his analysis will be easily accessible for everyone. Bronznik not only includes considerable stretches of strategic explanation, but he quite fairly shows that several main lines are only equal for White. The book is divided into two large sections on ...Nbd7 lines and ...Nc6 lines for Black. Other smaller sections involve alternative schemes, notably ones with an early ...b6. The presentation is of the form of full games with subvariations in notes, which is not my favorite structure. Nevertheless, the good index of variations made it easier to navigate than many other books of this nature.

Bronznik also includes a chapter of suggestions for lines that avoid the Colle. This is a crucial area for the budding Colle player and some of the lines are entertaining, for example, 1.d4 e6 2.Nf3 f5 3.d5!?. After 1.d4 d5 2.Nf3, Bronznik offers 2...Bf5 3.c4, 2...Bg4 3.Ne5, 2...c6 3.e3, and 2...c5 3.c3. He is very honest in acknowledging that the move 2...g6 should not be answered by 3.Bd3 if one expects an advantage (or even if one wants to avoid disadvantage), so some conventional approach to the King's Indian (or Gruenfeld) may be the best way to go. If Black chooses 1.d4 d5 2.Nf3 Nf6 3.e3, there are of course numerous choices such as 3...c6, 3...Bf5, 3...Bg4, 3...g6, etc. And even 1.d4 e6 “can be a real problem”, when the Colle ideas are not always available, and White may want to make conventional choices such as the French (2.e4) or QGD or Nimzo- and Queen's Indian lines after 2.c4 Nf6 or 2.Nf3 Nf6.

Oleinikov's CD (THE COLLE-SYSTEM CD) has numerous training sections, reflecting the philosophy that “opening knowledge is of secondary importance”. But he includes a fair amount of theory as well, with 17 “texts” that link to 396 games, “100 of them annotated by the author”. Some of these games are instructively annotated, but unfortunately, many others contain only cursory notes and or a few merged fragments, so it's not as though you get a conventional collection of 100 annotated games as you might get in a book. On the positive side, there are quite a few more games that are partially or well annotated by players such as Karsten Mueller, Ftacnik, Huebner, Speelman and Tseskarsky. These are presumably culled from ChessBase Magazine (and thus Megabase) and they flesh out the theory of the Colle. Oleinikov's extensive texts point to the relevant games; they are ordered in such categories as “10 inspirational games”, “Colle main line with Nbd7” (a straightforward theoretical section), “Black plays Queen side fianchetto”, and “Unexpected Stonewall” (1.d4 d5 2.Nf3 e6 3.e3 c6 4.Bd3 f5!?).

The CD's Bibliography is impressive, including all the usual Informants, Encyclopedias and databases, but also these books: Adam Harvey's COLLE PLAYS THE COLLE SYSTEM; Gary Lane's THE ULTIMATE COLLE; C.J.S.  Purdy: ACTION CHESS, PURDY'S 24 HOURS OPENING REPERTOIRE; Andrew Soltis' COLLE SYSTEM, KOLTANOWSKY VARIATION 5.c3; Aaron Summerscale's A KILLER CHESS OPENING REPERTOIRE; Zdenec Zavodny's EDGARD COLLE A JEHO VYSTAVA (Edgard Colle And His Defense); P. E. Kondratiev's SLAVJANSKAJA ZASHITA (The Slav), and several others.

In my opinion both of these products (book and CD) are excellent treatments of the Colle, although I admit to finding the opening itself rather dull. Bronznik's book is the more advanced and more analytical, whereas Oleinikov's might be more instructive for beginning and intermediate players.