How useful is going over annotated games?

Just what the title says. I like Chernev's "Capablanca's Best Chess Endings", and I'm just wondering if carefully studying a botok like this will improve one's game by a decent amount. I've heard people say completely different things about it. Some say that it improved their game a lot, while others say that it is not very instructional, but "an enjoyable read." What are your thoughts on this?

Depends on

- What your current playing level is - beginner? Intermediate? Expert?

- How fast / slow you go over the game ?

- Are you using a board on the side to go over variations or directly reading from the book using the diagrams that are usually interspersed every 5-10 moves?

- Do the games feature openings or opening lines that are part of your repertoire?

- Are the games classical, pre-1980s or something that was just played yesterday?

All of these questions really decide how effective this exercise will be to you.

Here are answers to all the questions:

I consider myself an intermediate player, or maybe just below.

I go over the games relatively slowly. I definitely don't rush through them, but I could take more time with each game and try to get the most I possibly can out of each.

I use Chessmaster as my board to go over the games. That way, I can go over all the variations without worrying about messing up the actual position.

The games in the Capa book mentioned are focused on the endgame, so that's where most of the analysis is and what I focus on the most.

The games are all played by Capablanca. A few of his opponents in the book are Reti, Alehkine, Janowsky, Nimzowitch, and Corzo.

Thanks for giving us a clearer picture. Now mostly everyone here assumes an annotated game refers to an entire game and not just the endgame.   Though in your case, I believe your question refers to "annotated endgame collections" which is one third (albeit significant part) of it.

Given the way you play them out, it is definitely useful.  Most people who truly benefit from reading / going over games start to notice that their brain is "sponging" ideas in a learn by example kind of way.  There are a few things you can do to make it even more beneficial, especially in the endgame.

- Play it out as you do using a board/Chessmaster.

- When the book says the position is won, plug it into the computer at maximum levels and try to win it clean.

- Even better => After you've got it down, play it against the computer in blitz mode (5 min games) or even a 3 min game. The greatest "test" to see if a pattern or idea is mapped to your brain is to be able to recall what to do instantly, hence the blitz exercise.

- Most important => Re-visit this endgame exercise a few weeks later to see if the winning technique is now all muscle-memory. There should be no "thinking" :)

Thanks Shivsky, those are really helpful suggestions of ways to test and reinforce your learning.  I find that in going over notes like this, I am always uncertain whether I am taking anything away from it.  I'll have to revisit some things I've been reading and try testing my mettle against a computer.

Anyone ever heard of Josh Waitzkin? Well he annotates his games on Chessmaster, I find him rather enjoyable to listen to. He has a losing record, but he is smart in a different way, he rightfully believes that the endgame beyond important to the opening. Capablanca proves this by his record, if you didn't know this already Capablanca was an endgame specialist.