Watch Grandmaster Chess Games

[Alarico Boyett]

Toget the most from other people's games, it makes sense to look at games that were played well. However, what a beginner needs to see is not perfection, but what happens if one player makes a mistake, and how the other player punishes it. This means either looking at games where only one of the players is a master, or at games played by two masters that were annotated by a master to show what would have happened if certain bad moves had been played.

There are quite a few good ways to do this. The most economical use of time is not to watch a live game, because this involves long delays, interruptions, and incomplete and erratic delivery of any offered analysis.

Instead, the most economical use of study time on master games is to replay a game that has annotations, ideally accompanied by explanations in English (or some other language comprehensible to the reader). Perhaps the best idea is to find classic games by one of the masters in the Romantic Age of chess that are comprehensively annotated, but almost any master's game should yield benefits.

A word about annotations: Many games are annotated by masters for masters. Examples are those analyses that are published in Sahovksi Informator ("Chess Informant"). These contain no words; all games are annotated with only variations and glyphs representing chess concepts, ideas and evaluation results. They would be incomprehensible to a beginner. What I'm referring to are games like those annotated in USCF's Chess Life, or the collected games of a master such as:

Another source is Everyman Publishing's "Move by Move Series". I would recommend the books in this series on Paul Morphy, Victor Korchnoi, Raul Capablanca, Mikhail Tal, or William Steinitz. They have the advantage of being published in e-book format.

"The Amateur's Mind", by Jeremy Silman, approached this technique differently with the (relatively) novel idea of looking at amateur games, pointing out their flaws, why they were flaws, and what would have worked better.

That said, since the mistakes made by the players involved are common among amateurs, you may realize that you are also making them, and be able to fix them. Another benefit is that the book tries to delve into why these amateurs made these particular mistakes; the author tries (though a bit unsystematically) to get to the root cause. This may be very illuminating for other amateurs out there.

One final note on Silman's book: Not everyone likes Silman's writing style, which some find abrasive at times, so I recommend that you look over samples of the content in a bookstore, or at your library or chess club. (Somewhat mysteriously, Amazon doesn't seem to offer a preview of this book, as they do with many others...).

Chess "thinking" is first and foremost a skill. As such it has to be practiced actively. Passively acquired knowledge will only flesh out what you already can do, it will not improve your chess all that much.

Of course if you try to follow all the variations of the commentators and constantly come up with variations on your own, you will benefit from watching games, thought the level of these games probably doesn't have much of an influence on the training effect.

If you are able to understand what's going on in the game, then yes. But if you feel like watching a mystery thriller, then no. To learn and improve yourself, first you should understand what's going on.

Well, keeping abreast of current games in current tourneys and trying to play/understand them all is not so useful. Many GM games fizzle out into a draw, because they are based on 20 moves of theory not worth remembering.

There are a lot of chess channels that show a game a day, or a game a week, and they can pick out the most exciting and instructive ones, the ones that help most with the basics. I also like the randomness and not knowing what comes next, as often I'm exposed to an opening I blew off, but I can see its dynamic potential.

I also like to visit chessgames.com for the game of the day, as well as play the daily tactics. The comments there help me see "what if X/then Y" and so forth, which is at least as important as a list of moves, or a GM's analysis. People of a variety of strengths comment, so you get to see a bunch of ideas beyond "oh he got this right" or "oh he messed this up."

While there were some interesting tactics, it would help to play over collections of tactics by THEME on a web site. Playing over many of the same theme will fix that pattern into your brain to more easily recognize if it shows up in your games.

Fischer and other top grandmasters regularly play over every game in tournament collections to see what they can learn and also for weaknesses they can exploit when they play other people in a tournament.

Definitely. In my experience, I've had several "aha" moments watching GMs play. At times watching their games, but also hearing them comment and articulate the thought process, allowed me to gain insights that I would never have attained on my own.

One recent example: watching a Nakamura Youtube video when he said in the opening: "What kind of structure do I want to play?" triggered an avalanche of thoughts in my head that amounted to a realization that determining the pawn structure early on is, firstly, in your hands, and secondly, paramount to the rest of the game.

If the game is commentated by a superior chess player who analyzes the moves, then it helps me see what they are thinking or why the positional move was made. Without the commentary, I see moves but have no idea why they were made and as the GM is playing another GM most of the time, it is not always readily available to see the intent of the move right away or ever without help.

Even when I have watched games in real time, with live commentary the machinations of 2000+ are extremely interesting to hear. The speed with which they evaluate the positions (pattern recognition etc) is admirable.

Chess videos can't make you even master.The reason is simple.Chess needs serious study, serious study needs serious books.You can't even be a good chef or a good driver from videos, how can you possibly be a good chess-player from them?

Chess videos is the easy solution for those not capable or not willing to do what they must.And they just fool themselves believing that it is enough.At least 95% of beginners (on any chess site) are mislead and greatly confused and chess videos only make things worst.

To be fair , chess videos can help but only combined with good books and serious study.For example, only reading about opposition and critical squares is not enough , you have to see it too.Either someone will show you or a chess-video will.It's only a suplementary teaching tool and as such should be treated and not as the main source of chess knowledge.

Bingo... From my own experience, 90% of chess videos are basically a commentary on some game that is supposed to illustrate the main point. Unfortunately, the point gets lost in irrelavancy after about 5 minutes....

I'm sure some chess sites would love us to believe that - they have something to sell after all. However, I don't think any would make that claim, because it is frankly absurd - at least the claim that anyone could become a GM just by watching chess videos.

I don't want to cool down your enthusiasm but I did not need a single video since my beginning. In fact no one need a video; the videos are optional, not necessary. Books are sufficient, in fact even less than a book could be enough; the most important thing is practice.

I think if someone gets a diamond membership on this site, uses all the resources religiously and in the right way, they can obtain around 2000 elo or expert rating. anything above that probably requires real chess tournaments and specialized training from an IM or GM.

Again I will disappoint you; having played some former tournaments winners, champions, IM, GM, I would say your statement is false. To get better results, practice, learning (not necessary videos) and determination are what you need above everything. I would add patience. Other factors are, imho, secondary.

Chess Videos help only those that get money from them, no one else.Of course if you don't study chess from books then watching a chess video can help.But in the long run is a total waste of time and money(for those who buy them).

Problem is , very few know what "good book" means , even fewer add personal effort and they prefer instead to do it with an engine, and even fewer know who can answer their questions.Proof is the hundreds of topics where ignorant and confused beginners are being advised(and in many cases concinced) by other even more ignorant and confused beginners.

Absolute subjective and arbitrary garbage. It takes the same amount of time to speak in a video and real life, you don't have to set up the position, how can it possibly be so much quicker with a book and board. Depends completely on the video.

Most chess players like to study games by masters and grandmasters. Indeed, many of these games are real works of art and you can enjoy them immensely. Of course, you can also learn from such games.

I still remember the shock I experienced after I saw the famous "opera game" the first time. As I explained in this old article, it was a true eye-opener for me, an invitation to the magic world of chess!

As you can see, whatever my student learned (if he learned anything) from that game by Nakamura was completely gone by the next day. It happens because most people just enjoy watching the games of great players, but they don't make connections between these games and their own chess.

But you can fix this problem easily! When you finish analyzing the game, ask yourself a simple question: "What have I learned from this game that I'll be able to use in my own game if the opportunity presents itself?"

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