What Is Your Process When Analyzing Games?

I often hear that game analysis is important. But, what does that mean to you? How do you learn from your previous games? Is you object to not repeat mistakes? And if so, how do you achieve this? 

I play a game. Step away for an hour or so, go back and run through just looking both sides moves. Then I go back later and set up a board. I play out each move, trying to find the best move and see if it matches my move. I also look at the recommended move and play that out. I just started doing this and hope that it helps.  

The thought process during game analysis changes somewhat as the player because higher rated and more experienced. The general analysis process is the same, but at the lower levels, the ideas must be found for the first time; whereas, for the higher levels, these ideas are mostly just recognized and heavily utilizing pattern recognition.

The goal of analysis (regardless of rating level) is to find improvements to the game moves. This usually means identifying suboptimal moves (especially blunders and mistakes) and figuring out why they are bad and what moves were better (and why).

Repetition is an important element of learning and developing pattern recognition, but it is more than just repeating things. When you analyze, it is important to constantly be looking for improvements. If you lose a chess game, then you should always have at least one takeaway from the game and know the "why you lost?"

This is the only way you can learn from your mistakes and prevent them from happening in the future.

@1

"game analysis is important." ++ Yes

"How do you learn from your previous games?" ++ Identify and cure your mistakes.

"Is you object to not repeat mistakes?" ++ Yes and also learn how to profit from similar mistakes by your future opponents.

"how do you achieve this?" ++ Take a game you lost. You must have made at least one mistake. Identify your mistakes. Identify your decisive mistake. What was the right move? What candidate moves did you consider? Did you consider the right move? If not, why not? If yes, then what made you play the mistake? How much time did you think about your decisive mistake? How much time did you have available? The analysis should last longer than the game itself.

"Step away for an hour or so" ++ Better analyse throughly right after the lost game, when the imprint is still fresh. After an hour you may be unable to recall your thought process during the game.