Studying the classics
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Chess Improvement 4: Studying the classics
Studying classic chess games is something that the former Soviet players and chess schools placed great emphasis on. It's certainly something you should be considering as part of your chess improvement programme.chess improvement programmeStudying the games from the great players serves many purposes: you will learn more strategic plans; better understand how to recognise and exploit positional strengths and weaknesses; improve your pattern recognition and ability to form suitable plans; and have greater awareness of tactical opportunities.
My advice is to adopt the approach suggested by Dvoretsky (in Secrets of Chess Training): play through the opening, and then cover up one side's moves and try to guess them, spending at least 45 minutes on studying each game.
You will need the games available in a format that lets you cover up moves easily, and preferably you will want games that have been well annotated. We'll look at making a set of games available via Chess Tales in a suitable format.
Which games should you study? Dvoretsky and Kotov (in Think Like a Grandmaster) suggest beginning with Rubinstein (a master strategist and endgame player) and then moving on to Alekhine and Capablanca. Along with these 3, I suggest working back through the World Champions: Kasparov, Karpov, Fischer, etc.. An alternative is to get a well chosen list of games that has already been prepared, for example Nunn's Understanding Chess Move by Move.
Obviously time will determine how many games you can study, but even just one game per week would see you absorb 52 wonderful games of chess and new ideas by the end of a year.
Studying games like this will also have the side effect of helping you, as Kasparov recommends, to continually broaden and deepen your opening repertoire.
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The world’s top trainer, Mark Dvoretsky, and one of his best-known pupils, grandmaster Artur Yusupov, present a five-volume series based on courses given to talented young players throughout the world. The books contain contributions by other leading trainers and grandmasters, as well as games by pupils who have attended the courses. In this first volume the reader is shown how to assess his strengths and weaknesses, analyze his own games, and learn from the rich heritage of the past by a study of the chess classics. Over a hundred graded test positions provide ample material for self-improvement. Read more.
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A classic, now available in modern algebraic notation for the first
time! Few books have had as much impact on chess literature as this: the
first edition sold out within months, and it was immediately recognized
as a masterpiece of chess instruction. Twenty years later, it remains a
bestseller in the field and one of the best practical training manuals
available.
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John Nunn is one of the most highly regarded chess writers in the world.
He has carefully selected thirty modern games to help the reader
understand the most important aspects of chess and to illustrate modern
chess principles in action.
Virtually every move is explained using words that everyone can understand. Jargon is avoided as far as possible. Almost all the examples are taken from the recent years and show how key ideas are handled by the grandmasters of today. The emphasis is on general principles that readers will be able to use in their own games, and detailed analysis is only given where it is necessary.
Each game contains many lessons, but to guide the reader through the most important ideas in each phase of the game, the thirty games are grouped thematically into those highlighting opening, middlegame and endgame themes.
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