Does studying GM games really help?

That's interesting. I never knew that GMs were born knowing how to play the Phildor position. Thanks for enlightening us.

I read this biography about Bobby Fischer. It said he started playing chess in 1949. 7 years later, in 1956, he was rated 1726. I thought the biography was true, but after reading your post I realize the book must have been incorrect. Thanks again.

Studying doesnt help you improve? You just lost the shed of credibilty you still had left... I hate to break it to you but just playing chess will not make you better and just taking exams in (insert subject here) will not make you a genius in said subject. Your logic is horribly flawed. Moving back to chess. Of course, just studying will not do much. You must study, attempt to use the ideas you learned in a matches, then revise. See what you could have done better. After you feel you understand an idea, move onto something else.

Should have quoted the rest. Shows your insecurities, but I digress. You cant get better without studying... therefore it is essential. All GMs study. The greats at everything studied... and I hate to break it to you but that is impossible to refute

1st line: You mean by opening books or tactics puzzles? Well, opening books are made from GM Games or books written by them, or atleast someone who has talent. Tactics Puzzles are taken from mostly GM Games, though you can make one from yourself. And chess isn't a lot of theory, there are practical games.

2nd line: You're comparing it wrong. It would be compared to looking final positions of GM Games, and who won. That can't improve your play at all. If you'd see someone painting from the beginning, and can analyze it, you'd surely be a great painter.

3rd line: Yes, they don't work like that. You're likely to forget memorized 10000s of games, or position may get you out of them. It's just looking what you wanted to move and how move made is better(or worse, if you're Stockfish on supercomputer). Let's take an example: If you want to drive, you'll see a professional doing it, but without your experience you can't expect(well, you can, but will be disappointed) to win races.

What about showing your rating?

What is every preparation in the world for?

Maybe you're from stone age, where nothing was improved. As it was born, so it dies(except the mass and volume occupied).

If you're too enlightened, I'd like to see what it has got you so far. Maybe you can defeat a machine at 500 Elo, maybe. After all, you can be a great player only by knowing how pieces move, right? Just tell any area of life where you have that talent: Being great just by knowing these fundamentals.

In that case, forums are not a place for you. Go and win tournaments first or delete your account for you may not have the talent. I see no needs for these forums in the process. You are still unrated. There've been 12 days since you registered.

Finally, I'd conclude with the saying: You have no right to guide others if you have no progress towards the achievement. Achievement is getting a good rating(or anything) without ANY former preparation.

Trying to combine your troll threads, I see.

Funny thing about 5'3", 140lb.  I knew that Muggsy Bogues, the shortest player in NBA history, was 5'3".  I looked him up and it turns out he was 141lb.  And he played in the NBA for over a decade.  Not an NFL linebacker, but something that you probably think is just as impossible for someone of that size.  Except that it happened.

Crawl back under your bridge now.

You could have removed all 'not's too, to make the entire comment favourable to you.

I love how you put the word "study" in quotes.

Why would an amateur study the pros?  I know right?  Makes no sense.  I like your hard hitting, no-BS style maskedbishop.

yes.

>My opinion is that study can get you to somewhere between FM and IM,<

No, that's not true. If it was, we'd have a lot more higher-rated players.

I know the retort is "people aren't studying properly" but who ever says that is just kidding themselves. 

Studying GM games - don't bother. ENJOY them. But if you want to actually get better at chess, put the GM games AWAY.

Yeah, this you said right. Actually if someone does not play any games to execute his study then all studying is nonsense. Its like studying year long and not giving exam, like programming a file GBs big but not willing to save it. You can read volumes on climbing a tree, but what if you just don't climb it? Climbing won't improve this way.

But, born genius, or egoistic fool, what about proving other things you said? It's like saying "You don't have to earn money to spend it. You don't have to acquire knowledge to use it." Not unless you're willing to make 30 move long analysis. Just study right way, and rating will improve. Else your life is doomed if you carry on your beliefs.

Try this:

1. Study appropriate master level games. You can't understand modern GM games if you cannot understand old master games. Try Logical Chess Move by Move, or start with Anderssen and Morphy and work your way through chess history.
2. When you study, cover up the moves and do your own analysis until you feel you understand the position, then guess the next move played. When your move is different than the one played, redo your analysis and figure out why your move was not played.
3. Spend at least 4 hours doing this every day.

If you don't have the time or desire for that much work, you will have to spend money on a good coach. You will still have to work hard, but it will save you a lot of time.

Post #105 is an excellent example.  Unless you have a particular interest in that specific opening, their middlegame play (and especially that King Walk) is largely unintelligible to the hoi polloi, like most of us.

Not that's there's anything wrong with studying (or even memorizing GM games).  Feel free to knock yourself out doing it.  

But it's just one of MANY study tools, some of which are likely more effective for you.  Nuff said ?

I never said you did remove anything. I simply told you to quote the rest. What you quoted has been what I have been saying though. Studying.... just studying and nothing else is useless. But, studying and playing the ideas you learned is what you do. Just because you are too dense and irresponsible to have it work for you doesnt mean it doesnt work. According to your logic, if I take the MCATs over and over again, without reviewing the material and my previous tests, I could become a doctor... LOL 

It's one of master traits to analyze every legal move. Yeah, it's strange move when everyone'd play Nc6+ he sacrificed his rook. And sacrificing another rook. It's too hard. Even I don't understand much after running Stockfish 5 on Auto Analysis. You can still understand and learn this combination. I know the problem: Moves are too unnatural to understand even by analysis. It's not like the puzzle where you just see the move and understand it. So try to understand it partially now and rest later.

If you want golf analogies, my golf improved more after 2 hours of study with a qualified coach than 5 years of regular practice (and another decade of irregular play before that).

Hitting a few hundred balls vs hitting tens of thousands. It's the coach that made the difference. The study of the swing, and correction, not practice.

It's pretty cringeworthy when people think they're an expert on something they know nothing about.

You're obviously just a troll though so this is a waste of time.

That rule is almost as inaccurate as your other posts.

Maybe the OP has some point depending on which GMs are followed. For example the games of Kasparov are so confusing that you might not get much at all from them. That I can understand. Kasparov himself said that studying the games of super GMs was like studying rocket science before algebra. 

But there are the games of older GMs like Tartakower, Stenitz, Alekhine and others that are often good to look at even though they can still be complicated to most players. If you can get annotated games then it might not matter who is playing because you'll have some guidance.

It is said that Carlsen didn't do this stuff much at all but he was completely surrounded by experts in the field and always had the technology and resources to learn in an organised fasion that most people simply don't have. I mean there's probably a lot more worth in some GM telling you how to approach a position than reading some 100-year old book about it.