First Steps: the Colle and London Systems
Cyrus LakdawalaWhy Play the Colle/London?
The actions of even a single annoying person tends to make the lives of the rest of us miserable.
My proof? Now every time we go to the airport they make us take off our shoes. Thanks a lot,
shoe bomber. And when we buy aspirin, they seal it in an impossible to open tamper-proof
bottle. Thanks a lot Tylenol poisoner lady.
Chess openings operate under the same principle: we think we understand our Dragon line
deeply, and then some GM comes up with the comp-generated 27 ... g5!?, the ramifications of
which lead to seemingly infinite subsets. Thanks a lot, GM with photographic memory. When we
blindly follow such theoretical winds, are we not guilty of violating the commandment not to
create graven images of the divine?
Our inner natures are given physical form in the opening systems we choose to play. If the Najdorf
and King’s Gambit are heavy metal music, then the Colle/London are Chopin’s Nocturnes. Neither the
Colle nor London are openings associated with kindling our imagination, yet from personal experience, I
can tell you that I rarely get a dull game with either. The reason I am attracted to the Colle and London is
the opening is effectively immune from such theoretical shifts.
Now the Dragon guys may consider us dullards for playing the Colle/London, while we consider the
Dragoners suicidal. I realized early on that irrational positions were ones for which I had little aptitude.
There is a sense of well-being in knowing that our line is sound, and that we are part of something which
endures, unable to be refuted by the hot-shot comp in the next GM game. When I look back at the opening
choices of my youth (King’s Gambit as White, and Najdorf with Black, both of which are completely at
odds with my natural style), it feels like rereading my high school yearbook and looking upon my
childhood aspirations, which today, somehow feel trivial.
Natural strategists/defenders, a group in which I belong, exhibit a sense of interiority, where our
natural inclination is toward the thought: ‘What is my opponent threatening?’ rather than the
tactician/attacker’s mind state: ‘How can I threaten my opponent?’. If you sense that you are in the
former category, then the Colle/London is a snug fit for you, since solidity is an attribute implicit in our
opening.
Now I make the iconoclastic claim that many of the positions we reach in Colle/London are sharp, but only later in the game. We don’t
avoid a clash, we simply delay it. All positional players understand that an outward show of manners, as exhibited from the Colle/London,
can disguise malevolent intent. We intend to win politely! There are two paths to chess theory: the automated version, where we memorize,
or the do-it-yourself model, where we force our opponents – and more importantly, ourselves – to actually think, even from the opening
stage. By playing such a repertoire, we choose the latter.