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I have just started learning to play chess and I find it really interesting to learn. I would like to learn as much as possible in order to become a good player. I looked on Youtube, trying to find games to watch that can teach me how to play. In particular my idea is to watch a lot of games in order to understand how the best players in the world think while playing.

So, can someone suggest some games to watch that are considered remarkable games?

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  • It's worth mentioning that you become better by playing chess. I'd focus more on that than on theory, especially as a beginner.
    – user428517
    Dec 16, 2019 at 21:14

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First, by far the most popular chess YouTuber is Agadmator. His channel does a nice job of going over famous games, and explaining them.

Other good videos are what are called "banter blitz". Banter blitz is when players, and you want to watch Masters, explain what they are thinking aloud as they are playing. You can then get a better idea of what we see, and what we are striving for. You can search "banter blitz" on YouTube. There are even many games by World Champion, Magnus Carlsen.

That actually gets into a deeper question, and that is if modern games are as easy to learn from, and I think the answer is "no". The problem is that in modern chess, everyone at the top level is so good, that even if one player is a weaker 2650 GM compared to the 2750 GM he is playing, both have a deep understanding of chess. They both counter each other's plans too effectively, that you cannot see a clear path from the beginning of a plan to the end of a plan.

That is one of the reasons that the older greats like Lasker, Capablanca, and Alekhine are great to study. They often played strong players, but still players that were in a different class, so you could see a clear plan from beginning to end, and the opponent put up resistance, but minimal resistance (I mean positionally, speaking). This also allowed these greats to annotate these games very clearly, showing you what they were trying to achieve, and exactly how they did it.

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    Agadmator doesn't explain the games very well in my opinion, he mostly just recites the moves and explains some tactics which occurred in the position. You can't analyse a game and understand it properly in 10-15 minutes. I would suggest taking a look at some older KingsCrusher videos (For example, I think his analysis of Kasparov's immortal is the best on youtube), as well as some st. Louis chess club analysis videos.
    – Ardweaden
    Dec 16, 2019 at 10:23
  • @Ardweaden The explanations really depend on the level of the person watching. I have been a Master for a long time, so I might not find his stuff as illuminating; but the original poster says "I have just started learning to play chess", so the explanations I have seen seem decent for his level. That said, I have only seen some of his videos, and have not spent hours watching.
    – PhishMaster
    Dec 16, 2019 at 10:32
  • ChessNetwork’s analyses are often clearer to me than Agadmator’s
    – D. Ben Knoble
    Dec 16, 2019 at 14:24
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    I agree that agadmator is usually not very helpful, mostly just saying "and then white played this move and black played that move", and second the recommendation for chessnetwork's videos.
    – Gareth McCaughan
    Dec 16, 2019 at 16:42
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    (I'd also question whether watching games should be a major part of how anyone learns. I'm sure it's useful to do it a bit, but I'd have thought more active things like playing games and solving tactics puzzles should be a much larger fraction of one's learning time.)
    – Gareth McCaughan
    Dec 16, 2019 at 16:44
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If a game has a recognized name, you would do well to study it. Some widely acclaimed examples include:

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I got the perfect link for ya its the start of a series of videos by IM John Bartholemew geared for lower rated players and going up into the 2000s eventually very well explained extremely helpful for any rating as there are several videos in the series its entitled climbing the chess ladder starts sub 1000 really helped me a lot enjoy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2huVf1l4UE

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I would suggest to play over GM games from a book. It goes at your pace. Easy to see, no audio problems like so many videos have. Easy to go back if you want to see the last couple moves again.

Whilst playing GM games is very useful. Especially if you concentrate on one opening. But if you really want to improve then you will need to look at openings, end games, tactics, and later pawn structure, positional play, psychology, and more.

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  • i have thought about his myself. can you suggest some good books for this? I have Bobby Fischer my 60 memorable games
    – srk_cb
    Dec 17, 2019 at 5:03
  • Not really. I have not bought a chess book for almost 50 years now. The one that helped me a lot was the tournament book from the 1953 candidates tournament with 16 top GM playing a double RR. It was annotated by Najdorf. Fischer liked 64 from Russia. These days there are many places to get recent tournament games. I think one is called Chess Informant. I never saw a copy of that though. And there are GM games online. One site has them all by opening.
    – yobamamama
    Dec 17, 2019 at 15:06
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I think the best channel to watch chess games on is PowerPlayChess. GM King has the talent to make little storyies out of very complex games that help in learning how grandmasters play.

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I have been studying AlphaZero's games, since it is probably the strongest chess entity to ever exist : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GuRq84F2fkA

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