5 Reasons To Study My 60 Memorable Games By Bobby Fischer
If you're looking to improve your chess, diving into a complete game collection is one of the most effective ways to sharpen your skills. Here are five key reasons why:
Learn How to Transition Between Phases
Studying full games helps you understand how to smoothly transition from the opening to the middlegame, and then to the endgame. You’ll see how top players adapt their strategy as the position evolves.
Develop a Strategic Mindset
When you follow a game from start to finish, you learn to think in terms of long-term plans. Instead of focusing solely on immediate tactics, you’ll start to recognize strategic themes like pawn structure, piece activity, and key squares.
See the Flow of Ideas
A full game shows how small decisions add up. You'll notice how top players make subtle moves that build up pressure over time, leading to an eventual breakthrough. It's about connecting the dots between individual moves and the bigger picture.
Improve Your Calculation
Watching how masters calculate sharp positions is incredibly valuable. By studying games that feature tactical battles, you’ll learn to calculate more accurately and deeply in your own games.
Understand How to Recover from Mistakes
Even the best players make mistakes. Studying their games shows you how they recover from bad positions, fight for equality, and sometimes even turn the game around. It’s a great lesson in resilience and tenacity.
Now, when it comes to game collections, Bobby Fischer’s My 60 Memorable Games stands out as the gold standard. Fischer was a genius at both tactics and strategy, and this collection of his best games offers a wealth of lessons for players of all levels.
To make it even easier for you to learn, I’ve created a YouTube series where I break down each of these 60 games. You can follow along as I analyze Fischer’s brilliant moves and discuss how you can apply these lessons to your own games. Be sure to check out the series and subscribe to my channel, MVP Chess, for more chess content that will help you grow as a player!
Tom Shupe, founder of MVP Chess and Chess.com Coach of the Month, is an active tournament player with a peak USCF rating of 2025. An award-winning writer, his work has been published in print by American Chess Magazine and online by Chess.com. Subscribe to his YouTube channel for educational and instructive chess content. |