I'm a fairly new chess player, so I don't have enough experience to discern what might be obvious to more advanced players.  I've been using the chess mentor to get an idea of popular openings.  As useful as that is, I'm curious to see how those openings transition into middle games and end games.  So, I turn to the game explorer to see what kind of "smart" possibilities may be.  Sometimes I follow the most common move, sometimes just one that makes sense to me, sometimes a move that makes zero sense to me just to see how it plays out.

My problem is when I follow a move until there's a single game that uses a response and I view that game.  The game quite often before checkmate is acheived.  Is that because the "loser" resigned?  That's got to be the case.  It's frustrating because, as an unadvanced player, it often still looks like anyone's game.  I wish there was some way I could see these games brought to checkmate!  I know from browsing the forums that resigning is honorable for a lost game, but...

Well, harumph. /rant.

I know the feeling.

Don't sweat the GM games, all us amateurs have that feeling from time to time... wanting to say "play it out!"

The best thing you can do for yourself is play many games -- and that way you're getting practice seeing games played all the way out -- against stronger players you see better technique and against weaker players and peers you can practice your technique and improve it.

Playing over master's games as a beginner can be useful in moderation, but it's certainly not ideal, too many mysterious moves.  Good to look up "smart" suggestions in the opening explorer though.