Why The Colle?

My use of the Colle is not for the purpose of gaining an advantage in the opening. As an average chess player having to battle much younger players with computer access and large data bases, my use of the Colle is to first disarm my opponent from his favorite black opening system to one of my choosing. I have found the Colle does much of that work for me but not totally. No system can ever do that but the Colle does greatly simplify the task. In addition there are ways to force my opponent to work on my familiar ground even when he employs non-symmetrical systems. Programs such as COW allow me to see at a glance all transpositions to favorable variations and compare them to already examined lines with computer evaluations. A number of improvements from published analysis are not uncommon and greatly aid in choosing specific variations for study.