Should you watch grandmaster games to get better at chess?

Grandmaster games are enjoyable, but enjoying a game is not the same as learning from it. GM Gregory Serper describes a student who had just studied a Nakamura game and, by the next day, could not use anything from it. His fix is one question after every game: "What have I learned from this game that I'll be able to use in my own game if the opportunity presents itself?" Write the answer in a chess notebook.

Without that link to your own games, a master game is mostly entertainment. With it, each game leaves one small lesson behind.

Use the same routine for every game you study.

1. Choose a game with annotations or clear commentary. Good explanation matters more than how strong the players are.
2. Guess the move: hide the next move, choose your own move and plan, then reveal the master's move. If they differ, work out why before you check an engine.
3. Slow down at a few critical moments, such as a pawn break, a big exchange, or the move into an endgame, instead of giving every move equal time.
4. Finish by writing one lesson you could use in your own games.

On a live broadcast, the same routine works with the engine and move list hidden: pick a side, think for a few minutes on each move, then compare with what the player chose.

Newer players

Start with instructive games that explain every move, such as classic annotated collections like Logical Chess: Move by Move, and with commentary built for teaching. Top-level games without explanation can be hard to follow because the key ideas are often in lines that never appear on the board.

Improving club players

Add live events with commentary and annotated studies, and use guess-the-move on them. Pick openings and structures you actually play, so the plans carry over to your own games.

Lichess Broadcasts carry live events, Lichess Studies hold shared and annotated games, and Chess.com Events lists live tournaments.

Master games show strong ideas. Your own games show what you actually get wrong. Use both: review your games with the method in how to analyze your own chess games, rank the problems with how to find your chess weaknesses, and then choose master games that show the theme you need, such as plans from how to improve your chess middlegame.