I think Morphy games aren't the best for beginners anymore

With respect to the middlegame positions, however, there are hints because they all come from games that are provided. There are a few ? ! and ?! in the game scores.

Of course, the moves in the game are not always optimal. Anderssen launched an instructive attack against Szen, but he missed a faster checkmate. Both the mate in ten that he missed and the attack that he played have instructive value.

The book does do a good job of cultivating work ethic.

If you know just one of the important classical games, you will be able to become a 1400 level player, know 10 games and you will be 2200 level, know 100 and you will be 2500.
GM-RAM, 77

GM-RAM sounds like a good program, then, but not the magic road to a 2200, much less 2500 rating.

I worked through Lev Alburt's Chess Training Pocket Book three times, hoping for some similar magic. For several months I would work 8-10 problems each morning over tea. It was a good experience. I do believe I'm stronger than I was in 1975, though I can't prove it, but it's not quite the transformation I had hoped for.

I've come to believe that chess study is like the Stone Soup story children learn, in which some hungry travelers stop in a village and announce they are cooking stone soup -- soup with a stone in it -- and it will be delicious but even better with some garnish. The villagers chip in carrots, celery, potatoes and the like.

The soup cooks and it is indeed delicious, but not because it was cooked with a stone. The stone was just a trick to get the villagers to put in real ingredients.

Just so, I think most chess instruction books, especially those with big promises, are tricks to get players to put in the hard work chess requires. It's the hard work that makes the difference, not the magic idea of the book.

I only partially agree with the above. 

If you spent a ton of hard work studying the WRONG things in chess, your progress will be greatly stunted until you remedy the real weaknesses in your play.

A great example of this are the countless 1150-1250 rated 5-min blitz players on this forum who continue to study tactics, tactics, tactics, and fail to improve despite years of play/study. When what they really need is to learn how to correctly play their openings and the smaller strategic moves that gradually improve their position.

Similarly, you can study openings to wit's end and get quickly annihilated in the late middlegame, or waste a ton of time with theoretical mate patterns with a N+B in the endgame yet repeatedly fall victim to simple pawn endgames.

It's of crucial importance to study the CORRECT stuff at one's level. And I'm thinking now that trying to have beginners play like Morphy is def doubled edged - if you can't see as tactically accurately as Morphy, even if you make the 'correct' moves he makes, you'll miss the critical responses and lose material very quickly. And Morphy's tactics are more often than not, NOT simple.

hhnngg: I can go with that.

I just haven't met these monomaniac chess players who only study tactics or who only memorize opening lines. I don't doubt they exist, they are just not the players I've met and can claim to know.

There is a neat little Russian book on Morphy containing about 300 lightly annotated games and advertised towards "beginners to experts."

Lowenthal-Morphy

It is, but it's hard to read.  There are a ton of Russian books I would love to be able read.

The VAST majority of players on this site who have stalled out in 5-min blitz ratings of 1150-1250 are playesr who basically do monomanical tactical studying at the cost of almost all else. 

That's why they're stuck. Sure, some of them aren't putting the effort in to improve, so that's why those folks are stuck, but plenty are trying pretty hard and going nowhere fast. (Yep, I was one of those stuck tactics guys for over a year)

hhnngg: Still those aren't the players I know and not the players, as far as I can tell, I am interacting with in the topics where I comment.

Most chess players stall out because it's a pastime kind of hobby, what we used to call coffeehouse players. Nothing wrong there. That was my grandfather who taught me chess.

I'll have to take your word that there is a new breed of player who obsessively works tactical puzzles and plays blitz all the time.

Though I would bet they mostly just play blitz and they are essentially coffeehouse players passing the time.

Millions of people have learned Russian, you can too!

The chess notation in the Russian book is clear enough. 

Morphy games are the best for beginners.

Actually Morphy and Tal's Games are the  Best for beginners. Because:

1. One chess game is won by an attack

2.Beginners need to learn how to attack

Thats why beginners must choose:

Classical and Attacking Openings such as Ruy Lopez,Italian Game,Marshall Counter-Attack,Kalashnikov Sicilian etc...

My reccomendation for beginners is to study the games of the sharpest players, also David Bronstein s' "International Zurich Chess tourment 1953" is a good book.. it contains a lot of good high-quality games, also Mikhail Tal s' books are worth looking at.

Seriously, beginners studying the 1953 Zurich book?!? Are you nuts? There are minimal annotations in there - most of the games go through 15 move openings with zero commentary, and the comments are only reserved for moves a master would have a harder time making a decision in. I'm far from beginner now, and I can barely comprehend most of the Zurich book!

Tal's games are also way too nuts for beginners - can you imagine having beginners see Tal's games, and then decide that speculative sacrifices are the way to go given their own highly unsounds calculational skill? That's probably the WORST thing you can teach beginners - tell them to trust that they're calculating 5+ move combos correclty and just go for it, regardless of positional soundness.

Calm down sir... Those things and books are reccomended by a GM, To be precise a chess coach. You may ask him if you want:

http://chess-teacher.com/ 

Just go to contact and wait for him to answer the question.

I belive you haven't read any of those books. Here is a sample from amazon. 

http://www.amazon.com/Zurich-International-Chess-Tournament-Dover/dp/0486238008

The explanations are clear (example: as he shows how to exploit dark-squared weaknesses) . Maybe you are too lazy to read or understand. Those books are good. i Own some of tal's books and david bronstein's.

Recommended by a GM for whom? I guess it matters what exactly a beginner is. I don't think Tal's games are entirely inappropriate, but for those who don't have a basic grasp of tactics, it can be misleading to see Tal's games and think attacking is always the way to go. With regards to Zurich 1953 for beginners, it's hardly useful to know how to exploit dark-squared weaknesses if one is still dropping pieces to 2-move tactics and mishandling basic endgames, in my opinion.

I would think showing instructional games between class players would be harmful to someone's learning simply because when you learn, you want to learn from the cream of the crop.

According to Peter Svidler, everyone below 1900 is a beginner (assuming said player is above eight years old).

I'd assume that the majority of super-GMs had enough innate talent that even without any serious study, they got to 1900+ very, very quickly, and without needing much help at all. For them, 2200 might even be a 'base minimal level' of play just due to their genetic gifts.