Thoughts On Bad Wörishofen II

I HAD four blacks in the Bad Wörishofen seniors.

One of those games began with 1.e4, but the other three were closed games, with rounds two and four seeing White play the Colle-Zukertort.

I was also expecting a Colle-Zukertort in round eight as a search in ChessBase's 2026 Mega database seemed to indicate that it was my opponent's favourite opening, but he varied with a New London (1.d4 and 2.Bf4, without an early  Nf3).

So why this sudden upsurge in interest in an opening named after players who died in 1932 (Edgard Colle) and 1888 (Johannes Zukertort)?

One possibility is that there has been a new book or online course devoted to the opening, and I later noticed the bookstall at Bad Wörishofen had a copy of Richard Palliser's The Killer Colle-Zukertort System.

This was published last year, described as an updated version of a a 2022 Chessable course.

Somewhat strangely, I cannot find the book on Amazon, but it is available from Chess & Bridge

One feature of the Colle-Zukertort is that White usually sets up the same way more-or-less whatever Black plays.

Round two after White's fifth move

Round four after White's fifth move

One point of this presumably is that White rarely has to get involved in a deep theoretical argument - it really is an ideas opening.

And a lot of the basic ideas are explained in some detail on the internet, eg at thechessworld and at chess.com.

The latter article is 15 years old, but ideas change slowly in long-established opening systems.

I expect to see a few more examples in my coming games as, if my limited experience at Bad Wörishofen is any guide, it appeals to a wide range of players - my round-two opponent was rated 2031, my round-four opponent 1671.