Favorite GM to study?

I study the world champions and their opponents.

I own a plethora of Bobby Fischer games, including his work, "My Sixty Memorable Games,"   Garry Kasparov's, "On My Great Predecessors Vol.IV - Fischer," and Lou Hays' "Bobby Fischer - Complete Games of the American World Chess Champion."

I also Study Tigran Petrosian, Garry Kasparov, Aron Nimzowitsch, Miguel Najdorf, Samuel Reshevsky, and all the great ones. http://www.chessgames.com/ has almost all of the great games by the great players, so you should check it out. I go there so much that I decided to just make it my homepage. If they've got a GM or IM title, then you can't really go wrong with studying them.

Older ones like Morphy and Alekhine are great as far as tactics go, but the openings are obsolete, and chess theory has evolved since then. Nowadays, you can't confidently sacrifice material like Paul Morphy did without calculating every single possibility, so that's the only real problem with pre-1900 games.

All of the world champions are good chess players (hence the world champion title) so you can study any of them.  Make sure you get someone with your style though. Either Jeremy Silman or Yasser Seirawan (both are prominent chess authors, so I get their literature confused sometimes) said that they started studying the games of Alexander Alekhine, but their style was completely the opposite of Alekhine's. I think Seirawan said that. Hm... Either way.

Kasparov, Fischer, and Karpov are generally thought of as the three best chess players ever, so that's where I would start if I were you.

Actually for a lot of Silman's early career his style was not at all completely the opposite to Alekhine's.

There's no top player, even many from the pre-Morphy era, that can't be studied to great benefit, like more modern players, especially when it comes to tactics. From Morphy onwards you will find excellent examples of positional play for at least up to middling students of the game, and in particular once Steinitz showed the modern way to approach the closed positions.

I'm not so sure about the efficiency of starting with someone like Kasparov or even Tal to understand tactics. It's a bit like picking up the calculus book when your understanding of algebra is quite incomplete. You may make some sense out of it but you'd learn more in a shorter period of time using the simpler book.

Morphy won't steer you wrong when it comes to tactics (or much else to be honest). Later masters of attack like Alekhine and Spielmann have left behind a vast legacy of attacking games and can be studied generally for positional play.

The old masters won't let you down.

I wonder how strong a player would have to be to be "too strong" to have use for them.

Silman is listed as co-author with Seirawan for several of Yasser's Winning series.

I think it is a good idea to study the GMs who used the opening variations that I use, or would like to use. Of course, brilliant attacking players like Alekhine and Tal can always be studied. When I was trying to learn the Sicilian Dragon I found the games of Velimirovic and Miles to be very interesting although I never really got the Dragon going in my games.

My first and still favorite positional/tactical books are by Capablanca...80 years on still the best.

I must say I've developed a fondness for Tarrasch. He seems like a player that "ordinary" players can try and emulate. I get the sense that his conception of the game was even superior to his OTB play.

He has been berated for "dogmatism" in his chess, but I think you have to approach chess initiallly and on goingly with some sort of postion.

I've been playing through a collection of his games. Typically involving positonal squeezes and nice endgame technique.

Tarrasch was arguably the best player for a brief period but couldn't accept Steiniz's challenge for a world championship match because he had doctor's general practice and large family to look after !

love the analogy there G-dog, but who do you suggest then?

Mr. Capa all the way -- that's where Botvinnik and Karpov got their style from.

Karpov got his style by drinking the tears of infants, and eating the flesh of the last unicorn...was that harsh?! sorry Mr.Karpov but your an evil genius...

Kasparov & Fischer

I'd recommend any player with a clear style (i.e. no Petrosians for example), preferably someone c. 1890s-1920 or so. No hypermoderns.

This is for the beginning to average serious player, and no reason that someone 1800+ USCF would be wasting their time with a close inspection of the likes of Pillsbury, Lasker, Tarrasch, Capablanca, and no shortage of other greats like Vidmar and Maroczy.

Of course, I mean this to be a recommendation for someone who is serious about their study and therefor has a real need for efficiency. Anyone into the game as no more than a fun hobby need only follow their desire when it comes to study.

If I could manage to ever get up interest to do real work maybe I'd study Tarrasch's games. In earlier years I spent time on Pillsbury and Alekhine.

Tarrasch's emphasis on mobility--always mobility-- would be worth understanding thoroughly for any player.

Once a player has quite a good grasp of the classical players then I'd move into the Hypermoderns.  After that comes the modern game that shook out from the clash of hypermodernism and classical play.

I see Alekhine as a prominent exponent of this modern play, and as establishing a deep research kind of preparation, and Botvinnik as clearly modern.

Guys like Capablanca, so it seems to me from reading about his style, seemed above it all and just absorbed new knowledge and kept playing in a clear style. I guess he was a universalist?

Capablanca talks of Morphy having a perfect style, and I think that Capa saw himself as playing the same kind of chess in that he didn't go for complications (like Alekhine for example) but instead wouldn't overreach when gaining or exploiting an advantage. I think studying players like that is always in order.

Improving players are usually advised to study Morphy, then Capablanca.

g-dog you rule thank you

Absolutely, this might be the most beneficial to less experienced players, but there are some advantages to studying the modern players. I just got a book on Kasparov's best games and the opening theory is more correct but more importantly I see more dynamic struggles (good for training your analysis in both tactical and positional situations, often they're very connected in modern chess) than the old master games. More strategies and opening variations are known. I like them both, and once I had a foundation of tactics and strategy, I'm appreciating the advanced analysis of the complicated Kasparov games, though I know for sure I wouldn't a year ago.

anand

Kasparov and Anand

Nobody mentioned Carlsen three years ago...

[edit: two persons did, after all]

Kasparov, namely his games against Deep Blue and Deep Junior