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After reading a few of the answers on here, it does seem to me that the Colle is a little misunderstood. Despite the outward, superficial appearance of e3 being a quiet move, the Colle Zukertort or Zuke is actually a pretty attacking weapon. It doesn't perhaps involve the double edged attacks of say the Yugoslav Dragon with Bc4 or Traxler in the 2 Knights, kill or be killed but it is a principled opening. The centre tends to be fixed or semi fixed and this helps facilitate attacks on the wing and white is better equipped to attack the black kingside with ideas based around Ne5, f4, Rf3 - Rh3, Qh5, dxc5 - Bxf6, Bxh7, Nd2 - Nf3 - Ng5... black does not, certainly in the earlyish phase of the game have the same counter chances against white. If black can weather the storm then his chances on the queenside are quite promising but not overwhelming as white has a solid pawn structure and good piece coordination. White actually has chances earlier in the game, usually vs a Qc7 to play c4 and Rc1 also so it perhaps isn't as simple a system as people seem to think. I guess quite a few here are confusing the the Colle Zuke with the Colle K which is a more solid system in someways but again White can often generate strong chances on the kingside with a well timed e4 and the mainline has been resurged to an extent by the Phoenix attack. In my opinion the colle is a good choice for players who have experimented with a few openings first, looked at some on the classics and want to settle on a sensible repertoire that will give them good chances of an attack at little risk. It must also be said that getting into the colle itself help vary the play as you will also experience other positions to the standard "mainline" set up to help your chess development, also, you will need something else vs Kings Indian, Grunfeld, Dutch set ups as the Colle is ineffective vs those openings. I recommend Killer Chess Opening Repertoire by Summerscale and Starting out d pawn attacks by Richard Palliser. Hope thats of use to u