What are the best annotated GM games for learning?

Those are good, potentially instructive games. Can anyone suggest where to find good annotations of them?

I suggest finding the games first, playing through them slowly, and only then to go looking for annotations...

Andre, that would be quite difficult and time consuming to do it that way.

There are thousands of very good GM games. 

Andy Soltis' book The 100 Best Games of the 20th Century, Ranked might be one place to start looking. However, I don't know what the annotations are like.

http://www.amazon.com/Best-Chess-Games-Century-Ranked/dp/0786427418

I second the book by Bronstein about the Zurich tournament in 1953.

http://books.google.com/books/about/Zurich_International_Chess_Tournament_19.html?id=VUrggX89EDcC

Also one by Lasker, the tournament book St. Petersburg 1909.

http://chess.about.com/od/chessbooksandequipment/gr/stp1909review.htm

My point is to get the INSTRUCTIVE games and play through those, before finding annotations. Classic games are best because they concentrate on a limited number of themes which makes it easier and more memorable to learn from.

I don't know what your OTB rating is, but Zurich 1953 helped me a lot when I was 1000-1300. Personally, Alekhine's book of his games wasn't so helpful for me, but I haven't looked at it since the turn of the millennium...I recently ordered Kotov's book on Alekhine's games, which a lot of Soviet-trained GMs recommend very highly, and I should receive it in a few days.

Other posters have mentioned other books, but I can't speak for those. Good luck.

Are the Kotov annotations of Alekhine's games that are recommended by the Soviet-trained GMs algebraic notation? Just curious...

I am just saying it would be hard to find the instructive games and then to annotate them.  I am sure there are games out there which are very good instructive games which are also annotated.  A few of Fischers games for example.

I "know" there are games out there which are very good games and already annotated.  Maybe they are on youtube?

Andre thanks!  Now we have a list started which I will add these possible games

Deep Blue vs Kasparov 1966 game 1  [won by Deep Blue]

Botvinnik vs Capablanca  World Championship game 1938

13 year old Bobby Fischer vs Donald Byrne  [game of the century]

Kasparov vs Topalov 1999  [Kasparov Immortal Game] 

[after the list is large enough we can choose the 20 best]

What can you learn from Kasparov vs Topalov other than to avoid playing Kasparov?

Scottrf, It was probably Kasparov's best game and Kasparov was one of the two best players of all time--so you can learn a lot.

But why avoid playing anyone?  

Will also add Bernstein vs Mieses

and Capablanca vs Corzo  9th match game 1905  

[I am terrible at making long lists due to a handicap--can anyone make a total list from what we have already?]

There are some excellent annotated game collections available.

Some of my favorites include:

Learn from the Legends  by Mihail Marin.

On My Great Predecessors (5 volumes) by Garry Kasparov

Fire on Boardby Alexei Shirov

Taimanov's Selected Gamesby Mark Taimanov

Life and Games of Mikhail Tal by Mikhail Tal

V Poickakh Garmonii by Vasily Smyslov

Zurich International Chess Tournament, 1953 by David Bronstein

My 60 Memorable Games by Bobby Fischer

Art of Chess Analysis by Jan Timman

Oh, there's a really inexpensive, really great book that everyone should have:

The Mammoth Book of the World's Greatest Chess Games (1998) by Graham Burgess, John Nunn and John Emms. The first edition contains the 100 greatest games as voted on by the three authors, and excellent analysis of each game. A second edition came out a few years later and included 12 more games played from 1998-2004.

This is a must-buy book. When it first came out, it was only $10.95! The only problem with the book is that it will eventually fall apart from overuse! 

I'd thumbs up Instructive Modern Chess Masterpieces by Stohl.

Thumbs down Timman's and Bronstein's.  They're not bad books by any means, but IMO they don't deserve to be called great either.  Maybe personal preference.

By the way, on topic, I think this a great idea.  Unfortunately I don't think I can contribute :(  Hope this list gets made though, I'd go over those games :)

All these posts are missing the point, he's not asking for game collections.

I am asking for individual games but you can pick a few of the best games in some of these very good game collections. 

Here are 4 more possibilities

Kasparov vs Deep Blue  6th game  Kasparov only needed a draw but went for a win

Lasker vs Capablanca 1914

Fischer vs Panno

Fischer vs Tal 1959

The Mammoth Book of the World's Greatest Chess Games by Burgess, Nunn and Emms.