Edgard Colle competed at the top level of chess for most of the 1920s, and his name is attached to the Colle System, a popular opening even today. Below, I explore his life and games.
Photo: Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Table of contents:
Biography
Early years
Edgard Colle was born in Ghent, Belgium, in 1897. His early years came at a time of increasing tension and conflict among the European powers, which culminated in the outbreak of WWI in 1914. Belgium was particularly affected by the war, as Germany invaded the country in 1914, despite Belgium’s neutrality. In 1917, in the middle of the conflict, a flu outbreak occurred, making life even more difficult. Despite this, Colle found the strength to win the Ghent Championship in 1917 and 1918.
The war ended in 1918, and Belgium was no longer under German control. This was also the year in which Colle began to visit Le Cercle des Echecs de Bruxelles in Brussels. This presented an excellent opportunity to play with and learn from more experienced players. Colle also began to train with the Belgian Master Max Nebel.
Champion of Belgium
This proved to be an excellent training ground, as Colle went on to win the Belgian Championship in 1922 with 7/9, a massive 2,5 points ahead of Koltanowski in 2nd place. The following year, he finished in shared 2nd place with Réti and Maroczy at Scheveningen, behind only Johner and Spielmann. Hastings 1923/4 saw Colle achieve an impressive 3rd place, behind only Euwe and Maroczy.
1924 was an interesting and successful year for Colle. He played an interesting match against Euwe in the Netherlands in April. Although Euwe won the match 5-3, the two players became good friends. In July, Colle finished 3rd at the unofficial Olympiad held in Paris. However, the highlight of the year was Colle’s victory at the Belgian Championship held in Brussels in September. He finished on an impressive 8/10 score, taking clear first place.
1926
Perhaps the most memorable and successful year in Colle’s chess career was 1926. 2nd place at Weston Super-Mare, behind only Euwe, was followed by clear 1st at Amsterdam, ahead of both Euwe and Tartakower. In May, Colle shared 1st place with Harold Saunders in his section at Scarborough, while in December he won a tournament in Merano with a 9/13 score. The traditional Hastings tournament of 1926/7 saw Colle take 2nd place. There he finished behind only Tartakower, and ahead of famous names such as Yates and Réti.
Life at the top
Colle continued to compete successfully at the top level for the rest of the decade. At Scarborough 1927 he finished in clear 1st place with 6,5/9, ahead of leading English masters like Yates and Thomas. That same year, at the strong tournament held at Bad Niendorf , Colle took 3rd place, behind only two of the world’s chess elite in Nimzowitsch and Tartakower. At the end of the year, Colle shared 3rd place with Victor Bürger at Hastings, behind only Tartakower and Steiner.
Scarborough 1928 saw Colle finish 2nd behind William Winter, but ahead of top English players like Yates, Thomas and Menchik. At Hastings 1928/9, Colle finally achieved 1st place at the prestigious event, although tournament victory was shared with Marshall and Sandor Tackacs. The following year, Colle won the Belgian Championship once again, held in Ghent.
Karlsbad and Barcelona
August 1929 saw Colle competing at a very strong tournament in Karlsbad, where almost all the strongest players in the world, apart from Alekhine, took part. In a field of 22, he finished in shared 12th place, with Tartakower, Maroczy and Treybal. However, Colle bounced back to record an impressive 3rd place at Barcelona later that year, behind only Capablanca and Tartakower, and ahead of famous names such as Yates and Menchik.
A new decade
Colle was only in his early thirties going into the new decade, and remained a dangerous player capable of competing well in tournaments at the highest level. He began 1930 with a shared 11th place finish at the very strong tournament held in San Remo. However, he bounced back to win at Scarborough in June, ahead of famous names such as Maroczy, Rubinstein, Khan, Grünfeld, Thomas and Yates and Menchik.
Colle also performed well at Liege in August, sharing 3rd with Ahues and Nimzowitsch behind Tartakower and Khan, and taking 5th at Frankfurt in September. However, Colle’s health was declining, and he was suffering from a gastric ulcer which had to be operated on multiple times.
A life cut short
In 1931, Colle finished 12th at the extremely strong tournament in Bled, finishing on 10,5/26 in a field which included many of the world’s strongest players, like Alekhine, Bogoljubow, Nimzowitsch and Flohr. Colle also had a good result in Rotterdam that year, sharing 2nd place with Landau, Tartakower and Rubinstein. However, his career was cut short when he could not recover from a fourth gastric ulcer operation. He died in April 1932 at the age of 34, while still a very strong player.
Legacy
Today Colle is remembered mainly for the Colle Opening, a system which he helped to popularise during his career. His friend Koltanowski would later write several books on the opening. Colle competed at the top level for several years, and his games are full of instructive themes which make them good models to study for ambitious players even today.
Game Analysis
Colle won an interesting game against Yates at Budapest 1926, where he demonstrated how to play against the isolated queen’s pawn.
Lessons from this game:
- The first step in attacking an isolated pawn is to blockade it, freezing it in place.
- Every exchange of a pair of minor pieces reduces the dynamic chances of the side with the isolated queen’s pawn, and highlights its static weakness.
- A common strategy to win an advanced square for a knight is to exchange off the square’s main defender. In this game, 27.Bf5 exchanges off black’s light squared bishop, leaving the white knight free to jump to f5.
Puzzles
Norman – Colle, Hastings 1923/4
Colle – Lancel, Brussels 1924
Tylor – Colle, Weston Super Mare 1926
Spielmann – Colle, Dortmund 1928
Solutions
Further Reading
To find more about Colle’s life and games, the following are useful sources:
His chessgames.com page,
his chess.com page,
this chessbase article by Eugene Manlapao,
this book by Taylor Kingston,
and this collection of his tournament and match results.
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