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. |