Model Games and Model Players
How to find and learn from your inanimate/animate mentors in chess
Imagine reading the autobiography of someone you admire and want to emulate. You want to learn from the way they think and do things. You feel inspired to take action after reading the book.
There’s something similar you can do for chess. When you want to get better at playing particular opening variations or middlegame structures, a tried and tested approach is studying model games and model players.
Grandmasters and experienced coaches I’ve talked to have recommended these methods.
Model games
Wherever you get your opening material from, you should take away two basic things from it:
several key variations; and
several model games.
After that, it is strongly suggested that you create simple opening files that contain key variations and model games from openings that you want to play.
—GM Davorin Kuljasevic, How To Study Chess On Your Own
Model games are instructive games that highlight typical plans and ideas in your target area. When you have a file of model games, you can
compare your own games with these high-quality examples
focus on understanding of the moves over memorisation, and
be more aware of strategies and foci for each side during games.
Where can you find model games?
The easiest is to use a program like ChessBase where you can filter games in your database by parameters like position, rating, time control, even pawn structure.
Books or courses covering the topic often include a set of model games.
For free resources, the Lichess databases and Opening Explorer are useful, while chessgames.com has a rich library of game collections curated by users.
Know and understand enough model games in the variation, and you'll outplay your opponent as soon as they're out of their preparation.
For players below 2200, you likely only need to know 5 model games to understand the position better than your opponent.
On a more general level, GM Chuchelov once said in an interview that the key to mastering an opening was to deeply analyze 20 important games in that variation. At that time he was working with a nearly 2800-rated Caruana.
I also recall a case where Karpov was able to recite, off the top of his head, 50 game references of important games to understand in the Hedgehog structure.—GM Max Illingworth, in one of his many instructive posts
When you’re starting out with an opening, a handy thing you can do in ChessBase is to play through a lot of games where each side wins or loses in under 25 moves or so. You can see the typical win conditions, mistakes and which plans could be effective.
Model players
A more advanced step is studying games by model players, those who have demonstrated good results and high understanding in your target area.
You can learn some things by playing through their games, as:
you notice what they do well
you realise what is weak or missing from your chess arsenal
you gain some valuable insights as they tend to play ‘your’ kind of chess but at a higher level against stronger opposition
you see the kind of things that can go wrong even for them, or strong plans for the opponent, and can apply the knowledge to your own games.
Who can be your model player/s?
They can be those:
you enjoy the games of
you came across a lot in your search of model games
who play the same opening/s as you that you want to emulate, and
who perform well with openings or other areas you want to master.
Most importantly: the way they play chess should inspire you. When you play through some of their games, you should feel: “I want to play like them!”
Once you’ve found these ‘models’, there are two ways to go about studying them.
Focus on quantity—play through a lot of their games quickly, where you’ll see typical ideas, plans, piece configurations and terrains of battle
Focus on quality—play through their games slowly, trying to guess their moves as in a real game. Compare your moves with theirs, and exert yourself thinking about what they might have been thinking about when they decided on that move.
Both are good approaches. The latter takes a lot more effort, but is important to try!
Whether it be playing a particular opening, navigating a middlegame with a particular pawn structure or playing endgames, you can enrich your understanding through studying model games and model players. When you’ve studied in depth with the help of these guides, what was once new information becomes a familiar part of the game.
The sounds here were new and unfamiliar to me, the same was true of the rhythm in which they surfaced, but I would soon get used to them, to such an extent that they would fade into the background again. You know too little and it doesn't exist. You know too much and it doesn't exist.
—Karl Ove Knausgård, A Death in the Family (My Struggle, Volume 1)
Good advice. I do most of this now, but wish I started doing it earlier. Was way too fixated on trying to squeeze out some meaningless +0.3 advantage from the engine.