Learning from Chess Champions and World Chess Championships
Question from VM: I have a doubt regarding learning from Chess Champions and World Chess Championships. Reading all games from world champion is really time consuming process and also tough to understand without the help of annotations. Also many opening lines played before are dropped at high level due to suggested improvements by chess engines. Do you still recommend it? If so what is the order to read? Are there any sites that have world champions games annotated (or at least all world championship games games annotated). What learning process can we can follow (for 1800 player) – VM (Coach and player).
Answer: Whoa! That was a beautiful questionnaire raised by you VM! In fact if I understood you correctly, it has four questions embedded in it.
Is it a recommended practice (even nowadays) to look at annotated games of World Chess Champions and Championship matches given the fact that many old points of analysis have taken a change with new lines overtaking the old ones?
What is the order to read/look at World Chess Champions games?
What learning process would one have to follow if he/she is around 1800 rated chess player?
Are there any Websites that have these games with annotations?
Before I jump into my suggestions – keep in mind that more books have been written on Chess than all other sports and games combined!
And even though I have approximately 2000 to 3,000 chess books, some of my friends have far more than that! In fact, my collection is considered to be just average!
Okay… but why I am talking about this here?
Just to drive home a point that chess is not dogmatic and fixed – in parameters. There is so much diversity, that it is mind-boggling.
And since you asked from a 1800 rated player’s point of view I will suggest answers based on that point of view.
Question # 1: Is it a recommended practice (even nowadays) to look at annotated games of World Chess Champions and Championship matches given the fact that many old points of analysis have taken a change with new lines overtaking the old ones?
Answer: Depends on your objective. First off, a few basic facts so that you and I are on the same platform of understanding.
At at 1800 Fide Rating you will be pretty decent tactically and also have a decent idea of strategy in action as far as your repertoire is concerned. So if your interest in World Champions is merely for documentation purpose then by all means go through their games in chronological order – or – as per your favorite players list.
Opening lines may change but middlegame/endgame ideas and tactical themes will never change.
You said – “Reading all games from world champion is a really time consuming process and also tough to understand without the help of annotations”.
It’s crucial for all chess players to find something that they like, that they are passionate about, and that, they truly enjoy learning and playing Chess and try to become better at that, every single day.
That is how you attain your goals, and so when you choose to look at World Champions for inspiration it is a commendable decision. It may be difficult and time consuming. But it is worth every second when you see the results coming.
So, find your passion, set your goal and make good, healthy choices along the path like learning from Chess Champions and World Chess Championships, and you will find success following you like a shadow.
The way to learn from un-annotated game(s) will be outlined in a later article.
But if you have access to a good source of annotated games such as
then it is easy to understand the advanced strategy of these high level games.
You said – “Also many opening lines played before are dropped at high level due to suggested improvements by chess engines”.
Let’s worry about the high ground when we get there and let’s not worry about the Engines’ suggestions – that can happen when we are beyond 2300.
The Engines may be very strong tactically – they can find the best move in a messy position but they cannot explain why it is a good move!
If you were to blindly follow only the top theory then you will be deeply disappointed when you play against a club player. Because you will be at a loss on what to do in case your opponent deviates from the main lines which is what usually happens in the below 2200 rating ranges.
Coming to Engines suggesting improvements, those suggestions will work well for them not for us humans who cannot play like an engine every time.
So use the Engines with great deliberation – better still to avoid them studiously and leave that to the trainer.
If however your purpose is learning from Chess Champions and World Chess Championships and brush up your thinking abilities in Chess, then why study just just World Champions?
Why not learn from a 25oo rated Grandmaster’s games or a 2300 International Master?
In fact you will be motivated when you are able to solve positions or guess their moves since theoretically you are playing far above your level of understanding. And gain much needed confidence that is essential for chess players.
You will see that even Grandmasters are human and are liable to make mistakes.
So the answer to your first question is a broad yes, with a caveat. That means, to look at only champions’ game may actually deprive you of much needed practice which you strongly need as your opponents may not be GMs or IMs too.
So look for the learning wherever you find it. Don’t restrict yourself to just the cream. After all the GMs have all been there through that path and learnt it the hard way. So you may not be an exception. Of course I am not suggesting you look at games played by players lesser than 1800 or even 2000. I would suggest as a general rule of thumb to look from 2200 upwards.
You can learn from almost every game and everyone above your rating level. But that does not mean that greater the difference the more you can learn! There is a limit to everyone’s grasping power and you need to go step by step.
This way you will be pulling yourself up from a length of 400-500 elo and that will be your GYM Stretching exercise regimen for successful chess muscles.
Question # 2 – What is the order I would suggest to look at World Champion games?
Answer: Very simply put, in the exact chronological order that they were champions. Once more I would suggest looking at the bigger picture, by looking at the top 10 players of every WCC era. It will provide you will all the necessary fodder in your chess training regimen. Prepare a dossier of interesting positions or points of analysis and that will be your ready-reckoner before your next tournament.
For example if you start with Steinitz then also look at (not necessarily in the same order as below).
Emanuel Lasker
Mikhail Chigorin
Harry Pillsbury
Siegbert Tarrasch
Wilhelm Steinitz
Paul Morphy
Joseph Blackburn
Louis Paulsen
Adolf Anderssen
Johannes Zukertort
The reason I suggest looking at the same chronological sequence of champions is because you will then understand the evolution of Chess thinking, that actually simulates a chess player’s evolution from an amateur to a Master. In those days there was no technical help in the form of computers but trust me, when you look at their games you will wonder how deep they could play.
Question # 3 – What learning process would one have to follow if he/she is around 1800 rated chess player?
Answer: I would suggest that first of all any learning must be consistent. No huge gaps in the schedule and no jumping between books. You can read as many books at a time as you want, but remember to finish them. As far as the learning process is concerned the answer is huge so it warrants a separate article by itself.
Question #4 – Are there any Websites that have these games with annotations?
Answer: The immediate one that comes to my mind is www.pgnmentor.com. You have all the players games listed and you can use a firefox addon like Down them all or Flashgot which helps in downloading all the files from a page automatically.
Bottomline: You can learn from almost every game and everyone. Play against people from all different levels at different time controls from all around the world. It’s when you go beyond the 2300 stratosphere that you will have to change the training schedule and syllabus.
Let me know if you have any further questions about learning from Chess Champions and World Chess Championships or any other points that are unclear! I will try my best to answer you in coming articles.
Some of the books I have enjoyed personally are listed below.
For those of you who have not heard of this book Pump Up Your Rating by Axel Smith – let me say that it aims to show new avenues for training for an already advanced player. The author presents a road-map of improvement in your Chess training.
The real value of this book is its instruction that is interspersed with lots of personal experiences from author and his chess colleagues. The book focuses mainly on increasing one’s strength at classical time control chess (more than 60 minutes per player per game). So if you are a casual blitz player you will not be benefited by this book.
Pump Up Your Rating by Axel Smith – who can benefit?
This book is for class A players (those who are 1800+ in elo) and above. For those who are rated below 1800 FIDE rated, it may help if you have a trainer working with this book. Remember that this book is for Tournament players and not for the casual blitz player.
Pump Up Your Rating – voted the ChessCafe.com Book of the Year 2013 – read here.
About the Author:
Axel Smith – Author
The author is Axel Smith is an IM (International Master) from Sweden and a FIDE trainer. Axel Smith is an upcoming Swedish IM, who is on his path to achieving a GM title. He is also a succesfull coach with many students climbing the success ladder, to his credit.
Smith talks seriously about his chess preparation; he prepares in detail for his opponents sometimes going to great lengths like looking at his opponent’s ICC games too check out their weaknesses. Now isn’t that a creative streak?
Nothing motivates him more than winning in chess.
What is shocking is that anything not related to improvement is not worthy of his attention as he feels that studying Chess history is unimportant – “I don’t think I have ever seen a complete game by Bobby Fischer,” he frankly reveals in the book.
Why should you read Pump Up Your Rating by Axel Smith?
I know for sure that had I read this book I would not have wasted my 3-4 years of chess training some 15 years ago.
This book is a labor of love and fills an important gap in an improving chess player’s library. It answers many questions that a budding chess player has or should think of like finding a good training partner for those who can not find chess players nearby and how to use chess software to aid in preparation.
During training, Smith reveals that he does not watch TV, or use smart-phones or the Internet; and he avoids reading books while playing in a tournament, as these are a cause of distraction.This may not appeal to some as each person has his own way of unwinding and relaxing.
He comes across as some one who has walked the talk and wrote it all down.
What does the book look like?
It consists of two big parts and each part is a book topic by itself!
The first part deals with How to think in Chess, pertaining to the basic positional ideas and strategy. He talks about pawn levers (and how they are the anchor of all planning), piece exchanges and imbalances, and finally the most important skill of all – calculation.
Chapter one – Pawn levers.
Chapter two – Exchanges and imbalances – art of exchanging and the timing so as to create an imbalance in the position.
Chapter three – Critical decision making and questions that need to be answered while coming across such positions.
Chapter four – Calculation (different from Kotov’s tree of calculation)
The Second part deals with techniques on training in Chess. This is the fun part of the chess book and will make you read everything in one go.
Here Smith explains how he improved by following what he describes in this second part, in four chapters:
Analyzing your games and making a ‘list of mistakes’
A program to study tactics;
Openings trainingusing Chessbase software for the creation of ‘opening files’ and looking at games
Learning the most important theoretical endgames first – roughly 100 in number.
He comes across as a live-wire author who is teaching you what you must learn and what you may avoid, in order to save precious time.
As a bonus, you get an Appendix that has a List of theoretical endgames – however they are to be downloaded in PGN format from their official site which is here.
The database discussed in Chapter 7 – Openingscan be downloaded (in PGN format) here.
For anybody thinking about buying the book – I can wholeheartedly recommend this one; it has delivers on everything it promises.Jacob Aagaard described it on Quality Chess blog as “reminding him of his own Excelling at Chess, only better”! Pump Up Your Rating by Axel Smith is a refreshing new book for chess coaches and players who are trying hard to make progress and find that they are stagnating. Those who are in need a different set of training techniques that are not old school, will gain a lot from this book. Some techniques may sound radical but then it worked for him so who knows – it may work for you…
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Get it from here in Amazon (India) or Flipkart India
There is always a dearth of quality chess material for training once you climb up the ELO ladder. When my students join they are raw beginners but later I find it difficult to set them challenging tasks as they slowly master the techniques. And therefore I keep looking out for new avenues for training them with. Today I have a reason to be thrilled. I have seen Dvoretsky’s latest book on the art of prophylaxis that seems to have come after a long hiatus. Dvoretsky’s latest book on the art of prophylaxis is something that most of chess books have been lacking and that isRecognizing Your Opponent’s Resources: Developing Preventive Thinkingwhich is by the way the title of Dvoretsky’s new book.
Victor Kortchnoi once said with great insight –If you do not check what your opponent is doing, you will end up complaining about bad luck after every game.
So understanding your opponent’s next move could be or what agenda he is trying to accomplish, is one of the most important core skills required climb up the ELO ladder. It is what makes a difference between a good chess player and a strong chess master.
The reason why many students stagnate is because they are aware of most of the direct methods of attack and will thrive in many a tactical melee, but give them a position where they are at the receiving end of the opponents’ blows, or where the tactics are not yet present on the board, they will be all at sea.
What is special about Dvoretsky’s latest book on the art of prophylaxis ?
What is prophylaxis in chess?
I have a 1200 player who attacks ferociously with tactical claws that will tear any ripe position apart. One day when we played a game that was steered into positional waters, he was stuck for 2 hours in getting the best move! I had to reset the clock many times as he was floundering for a move and in exasperation he asked me (after having reset the clock for the 4th time) – “What is the move I must play here, Master?” – to which all I could say was “I think your best move is to resign as I myself do not know how you are going to disentangle from your mess”.
That is the power of prophylactic thinking for you.*
Dvoretsky is known for advocating the art of prophylaxis as a key to mastery in the higher levels of chess playing arena. To put it in his own words (Secrets of positional play), Prophylaxis or prophylactic thinking is “the habit of constantly asking yourself what the opponent wants to do, what he would play if it were him to move, the ability to find an answer to this question and to take account of it in the process of coming to a decision.”
Dvoretsky is very famous for his classical books that are considered as must-read for those beyond 2000 ELO upto 2400 ELO. In this book, Dvoretsky embarks on a classical but neglected training on this theme, with high-quality training material for independent analysis.
Contents of the book – on the subtle art of prophylaxis
Each chapter has a introductory theoretical section followed by plenty of exercises, from easy to difficult. Each chapter begins with a small explanation on the chapter’s theme, and this is followed by positions for solving with their solutions.
This book consists of four chapters, all dealing with identifying what your opponent’s next move or moves could be. They are:
Pay Attention to Your Opponent’s Resources (180 problems).
The Process of Elimination (106 problems).
Traps (36 problems)
Prophylactic Thinking (154 problems)
To summarize –
The best part is that among the approximately 500 exercises, there are opening, middlegame and endgame positions. This provides you with challenges in searching for a move and calculating variations as per the given pointers, that will help you at any stage of the game, be it the opening or the middlegame or the Endgame scenario.
The crux of the book is the solutions offered for the training position which are very detailed, as is typically expected of Dvoretsky’s work. Throughout the book, the author guides us by leading us through the schematic thinking for a solution in each position, to show how a player can come to the right choice of move at the board.
Recognizing Your Opponent’s Resources is a must buy as it comes from the master himself. I suggest going through this book with your student if you are a Coach or Trainer – this will open up a few hidden insights in his/her chess brain.
*I keep harping on positional play many times and prophylaxis is my main forte while playing with some upstart students, as it is a complex concept. And whenever they start watering in the mouth with an upcoming tactical warfare and an impending win over me, I pull the plug, and play positionally to get the grip back. That way I enjoy the looks on their face when they hit a wall. This actually makes them understand that tactics has to coupled with positional concepts for chess mastery.
Order Dvoretsky’s latest book on the art of prophylaxis from the Bookdepository if you are in the UK.
It’s a known fact that has been stressed for a long time. Chess is 99% Tactics! And that is the theme of today’s Review: Tactics Time! 1001 Chess Tactics. Tactics Time! 1001 Chess Tactics from the Games of Everyday Chess Player is different from other regular tactic chess books, in that the positions are all taken from everyday amateur games.
You just need to find a tactical solution, without any hints whatsoever.
Some positions are dead easy, while some are really difficult.
What appealed to me about this book is that each and every position is typical of problems that the majority of the chess players are likely to face (in the weekend local tournaments or clubs).
Who is this book Tactics Time! 1001 Chess Tactics aimed at?
Tactics Time! 1001 Chess Tactics from the Games of Everyday Chess Players
One caveat though – this book is not for the rank beginners, since the problems are not arranged by any theme and the answers can be difficult and lengthy for them.
So if you are probably somewhere in the range of ELO 1000 – 1600, solving this book’s puzzles every day should help in your gameplay as they will simulate a real chess game.
This training method is best suited for the serious beginner and helps as a daily warm-up course. If you are using the Kindle version use it while commuting or waiting.
I know this sounds a bit difficult to understand as the usual perception is that the harder the problem the better the result. Trust me, it’s crucially important to master BASIC tactics.
It doesn’t matter if you can solve most of the 4-5 mover tactics if you are regularly missing on the smaller 1 and 2 movers. I hope this explains why people stagnate for years despite doing hard work studying tactics daily. You must burn in the basic patterns into your subconscious mind, so it doesn’t even require any thought.
In the well-optimized Kindle version, you get one problem per page with the answer seen on the next page. This helps to keep the answer hidden from prying eyes. If the answer is not possible just flip the page!
Pros of this book:
Contains a huge number of chess positions (1001 to be precise)
Diagrams are clear and easy to view
Problems are not too hard just apt for post-beginners.
Problems are taken from real games and are not composed.
Each position has additional meta info like players names, ratings, date of the game, etc
Puzzles in this book are from many sources like blitz, correspondence, rated USCF games, weekend tournaments, scholastic tournaments, etc
Solutions are easily understood.
Affordable price.
If you are a Kindle owner, you’ll love it as it is specifically for Kindle with problem and solutions on an alternate page
A random mix of tactical themes (pins, forks, skewers, double attacks, etc)
Cons of this book:
Has no grading of tactical themes.
Not apt for higher levels as the positions may be easy for them.
Affiliate Disclosure Note: The links on this page are affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases at absolutely no extra cost to you
Question: Hi Coach @GoldenChess! I’m a newbie in the chess scene and am from Madipakkam (near Nanganallur) in Chennai. I have a problem and that is – Chess Openings – how to study – for beginners especially. The doubt is: should I study all the major openings and if so which ones do I have to study as priority?
To be more specific, my concern is – I am very familiar about the Sicilian but after 1. e4 if my opponents do not play any Sicilian line but takes me into an unknown territory that I can’t manage, what must I do ?
Do I have to study all the openings in this case ?
Last week somebody advised me that I have to study the openings that fit my playing style. What is your take on this?
Thanks for all you tips! – Aadhithya (age 15)
HiAadhithya – First of all, I guess that your question is basically about building your White repertoire. In the long run, if you are serious about improving your chess, the answer is – yes! Hard work does pay. For example – you may start with 1.d4 and play the Colle system – or the Sicilian Grand Prix with 1.e4 as white. But there is every possibility that you will soon feel bored with that opening.
Chess Openings – how to study – for beginners (or how not to study!)
What openings you choose is up to you, and depends on your goals in chess and your personal tastes. So if you are already rated 1800 or thereabouts, you can pick theoretical lines to build your repertoire and polish it everyday.
However if you are lower rated – you said you are a newbie so I assume you are a post-beginner – then you need to only understand and remember the major lines in a selective set of openings and more importantly, improve your middlegame understanding.
Try completing the combination books selected from this link from Amazon.
Note however that you will not have a ‘style‘ of play until you have a quite decent understanding of the game by which I mean 2200 elo rating.
Until then you don’t have a style – what you have is a collection of responses and weaknesses.
So in summary –
Study only the important openings that you will play and encounter and choose the 4 or 5 common variations of that opening, to begin with by reading books by the great Grandmaster of the past (I have listed some suggestions below).
Play them regularly with friends or at online chess playing sites such as Chesscube.com, Chess.com, ICC or Playchess (ChessBase).
Try playing with chess software like Lucas Chess (read a good review here)
Don’t hesitate to change openings if you feel you are not enjoying it.
Don’t waste your time on off-beat openings that are not important, you are not a master yet and
I suggest to really master tactics by doing them daily on a real chess board rather than openings for your age and level because you will lose mainly by tactics and not because of the minimal advantage that was gained by that uncommon variation.
Book Suggestions: I suggest you to get a few books that are a collection of GM games annotated by the Grandmaster himself and go through them with your coach or another player who is stronger than you.
I have avoided providing the latest Grandmaster’s book list as the above list of older books gives a good understanding of an opening’s evolution. These books will discuss about the opening plans and ideas and that will be a good foothold to begin with. I hope I have answered your question on Chess Openings – how to study – for beginners
Once a grasp of these ideas are absorbed in place, we can then continue our learning with the later day Grandmaster’s books such as those by Shirov, Anand, Gelfand, Karpov and Kasparov.
Additionally, I would request you to share some of your OTB (On the Board) games or online games to make this discussion more meaningful.
Do drop in at Golden Chess Centreat Nanganallur (Chennai) and we will see how to guide you in your self study.For others who have found my suggestions useful why not visit my Facebook page and follow it by liking it so that you can be notified for more such articles like this?
Note: The links in this page are affiliate links which means I earn a small commission from any purchases. Prices are exactly the same for you if your purchase is through an affiliate link or a non-affiliate link. You will not pay more by clicking through to the link.
Chess in the Digital Age is an enchanting 356 pages guide that explains almost all aspects of using ChessBase.
Let us start with the basics first.
What is ChessBase?
ChessBase is an amazing chess database software mainly used by top professionals and by amateurs. It has evolved constantly from a very basic chess data reference tool to a full-blown chess database software.
Much like the Swiss knife of Chess
What is the book about?
For those who have been using the ChessBase Software (and I am pretty sure at least 75% of chess players around the world have used it at one point in time or the other) for straight forward game collections and annotations or for mundane tasks like viewing a game or playing a game online, this book will show what ChessBase software is actually capable of doing.
Here a small caveat – though the author has done a very good job explaining the key features with real-time case studies, it can by no means be labeled as ‘complete’. However, that does not take any credit away from the utility value of the book which is a path-breaking one.
Why this book?
I am sure most of you would have by now figured out a few basic functions in Chessbase, but a lot of the nerdy stuff features are not obvious unless you see them in the true perspective of results.
You may argue that there is a user-manual in the program as is the case with all software, and pretty much is explained in there, but it’s written more with an eye for technicality, than the utility point. The how is explained, but not the why and when and what if.
When one opens Chessbase it appears as a mysterious piece of software that appears easy to operate but you get a gut feeling that it has some secrets that are hidden deep inside waiting to be unraveled.
After going through this book you will realize that you have been actually right all along. There were many functions that you did not even have an inkling of.
In other words this book is like the hitch-hiker’s guide to the Chessbase galaxy!
How does the book deliver?
Showing hundreds of helpful screenshots from the program, Jon Edwards explains the following tasks with ChessBase:
Effective Opening preparation is de-mystified with suitable examples.
How to get a collection of important games in any opening, middlegame position type, or even endgame positions
How you can install and see what engines think about any given position.
How you can perform an analysis and see where you and your opponents erred.
How you can publish your games in a book or the web/Facebook
What about practical examples?
What the author Jon Edwards has done is to take pains explaining 14 general features (aptly called ‘scenarios’), such as training and teaching, position searches, opening preparation, playing on the Playchess server using ChessBase, etc, and explains clearly how to go about accomplishing these activities.
The fact is that this book is a ready-reckoner because Chessbase is one life-saving utility for 99% of today’s chess professionals.
Do we need to have the Chessbase software?
The book is full of screenshots, which are helpful so that the program need not be open in front of you (though that would be highly recommended) and he does not miss anything major.
So is Chess in the Digital Age a complete reference manual?
Though every little function is explained to the point, I should add that this book is not a complete reference manual. The author merely elucidates how he uses the various features of Chessbase for his specific purposes (scenarios).
That said however if you are a serious chess player, this book should be in your collection of essentials. And although the book was written with Chessbase 12 in mind, it still works with the latest release of Chessbase 16.
The only sore point in Chessbase Complete Chess in the Digital Age is that the images used in the book could have been good quality color images to better illustrate and engage the reader’s eye. Hence my half-star less in the rating. It has nothing to do with the content – which is 5 star!
You said – “Reading all games from world champion is a really time consuming process and also tough to understand without the help of annotations”.
You said – “Also many opening lines played before are dropped at high level due to suggested improvements by chess engines”. 
