What is your favorite game collection?

I'm thinking about getting a good annotated collection of games in order to work on my middlegame and overall tactical vision.  Jeremy Silman recommends setting up the board about 10 moves into a game by some great player such as Alekhine, and then exhaustively analyzing (and writing down) each candidate move for each position until the game is finished.  It is supposed to improve tactical vision and calculation.  Anyhow, I wanted to buy a single game collection that would be ideal for this purpose.  The criteria are:

1) First rate play, obviously.

2) Annotations that are actually instructive for a class player.  (To be consulted after one does the exercise).

3) Algebraic notation.

I guess 2) is the rarest and most desirable quality.  Anyone can look up games on the internet for free.  So, any recommendations?

So far it's been "Kasparov on Modern Chess part 2: Kasparov vs. Karpov".

The early games and first two matches between the greatest rival in chess history annotated by the best player in chess history. What more could you want?

Woah, that Alekhine book is super-spendy.  Bookfinder doesn't have it for less than 100 dollars.

Many great english-language collections aren't translated into algebraic yet. Botvinnik's One Hundred Selected Games comes to mind. Tartakover's 500 Master Games of Chess is another.

Fischer's My 60 Memorable Games would be a candidate for the OP, though a less modern player would be better to start off such study with.

Man, I'm just now getting into Smyslov (and trying to really learn my endgames, not uncoincidentally) ... what a wonderful player he is!

Here's what looks like a nice collection to dip into:

The Mammoth Book of the World's Greatest Chess Games

I don't own the Mammoth book, but it looks pretty great I'll probably pick it up at some point.

The most Instructive Games of Chess Ever Played by Chernev would be great but it's Descriptive Notation.

On My Great Predecessors (I've only got Vol. 1  -- Steinitz thru Alekhine) ought to be wonderful, but it's plagued by editorial problems.

The Most Instructive Games of the Young Grandmasters (by GM Paul Motwani) is very generously annotated. It's not written with masters in mind (nor with E and D players in mind for that matter... it's a good club level book IMO).

That Young Grandmasters book looks pretty cool!  I might get it!

Right now I am loving 300 Games of Chess by Tarrasch.  It has great annotations.  Marshall's Fifty Years of Chess has great games but the annotations are okay.  A great instructional book was Neil McDonald's Art of Logical Thinking!!

That Young Grandmasters book looks pretty cool!  I might get it!

It has one totally inconsequential flaw that at the same time is very annoying. Motwani is some kind of astrology nut. The idea that this guy who could kick my ass blindfolded (and with N odds) is at the same time a soft headed ninny who takes astrology seriously, makes me want to throw myself under a bus. Every chapter begins with some COMPLETELY inane reference to the player's birthday. Urgch! 

Here's an example: 

Michael Adams

• "Miracles appear to happen on the chessboard when the pieces are being guided by the exceptionally gifted hands of Michael Adams, who was born on the official feast day of Saint Gregory the Wonderworker. It's also quite appropriate that November 17 marks the birthday of film celebrities such as Danny de Vito, Rock Hudson, and Martin Scorsese, since Mickey loves movies almost as much as chess..."

     CAN YOU BELIEVE THIS $#!% ???

But other than these paragraphs, which only happen at the start of each player's chapter... the book is quite fine.

It's the author's choice to write such bizarre material. So he gets a scathing review (see above lol) as his reward. Half-scathing anyway.

i just bought the mammoth book of the worlds greatest chess games and its perfect for what im looking for.

My favorites are:

Bronstein's "Zurich International Chess Tournament, 1953"

Bronstein's "The Sorceror's Apprentice"

Tal's "Life and Games of Mikhail Tal"

Of these, the first is perhaps best suited for what the original poster is looking for. It's regarded as one of the classics, has 210 games extensively annotated by Bronstein, and is only $10.17 on Amazon!

2 of th best books you can get reagrding covering up the move and trying to figure out what to play are

Karpovs greatest games

Alekhines greatest games

Thanks for the comments.  Since I wrote this post, I have begun working through John Nunn's "Understanding Chess Move by Move."  It has a good mix of strategic and tactical commentary, and the games are selected in order to illustrate a variety of themes, such as, the pitfalls of overextending your pawn center.  All the games are from the current era.

I like Karpov a lot and have been tempted to get the recently (re?)published "My Best Games."  Anyone looked at that?

Tarrasch is a little dogmatic and ever so sure of himself when he annotates games but he is very quick to criticize himself as well.  The cool thing about Tarrasch's dogmatism (and Chernev for that matter) is that at my level (PATZER!) it gives me something concrete to grab onto.  I just have to make sure that in the back of my head that it is not so concrete as Tarrasch and Chernev sometimes make it out to be. 

And I just finished Tal-Botvinnik, 1960!  Smoking book!  Tal was not only a great player he was a tremendous writer as well.

I just picked up Tarrasch's 300 Games of Chess and I'm really surprised by it.  He has a nice dry sense of humor it seems (from the intro anyway, I JUST got it).  He grew up in the same city as Andersen so when people say he bridged Morphy and Steinitz (though after both obviously), the awe he as a young man had for Andersen comes through in the book and I wonder if he's as much a bridge between Andersen, Morphy and Steinitz.  I studied the Morphy v. Andersen games, that much is clear.

I ended up somehow (seriously, I don't know how) the superadmin of a group who's purpose is to study books together.  I'll be finding the pgns for the games in it and offering them up for discussion in the group.  Join if you want.  The group is kinda dead but I feel and obligation to try to either resurrect it or make it a zombie or something.

I really enjoyed Paul Keres: Road to the Top & Paul Keres: The Quest for Perfection. This Keres collection is at the top of my list. Other good  games collections I have are:

The Life & Games of Mikhail Tal

Tal Botvinnik 1960

I Play Against the Pieces-Gligoric

Pachman's Decisive Games

Capablanca's Best Games-Golombek (algebraic)

My Best Games of Chess- S. G. Tartakower (both volumes)

500 Master Games of Chess-S.G. Tartakower

Masters of the Chessboard-Reti

My Fifty Years of Chess-Frank J. Marshall

Rubinstein's Chess Masterpieces-Kmoch

In my opinion you should consider a collection of a specific player with a playing style that suits your own. Doing solitaire chess with these games can help you improve your thinking process and your candidate moves and plans will be more consistent.

I prefer using other books like Understanding chess move by move for different study. Where I look at the moves, read the comments and not cover the moves.

My favorite collection is Bronstein's book on Zurich 1953, but a close second is a book that I never see mentioned on any of these threads: "Reshevsky's Best Games of Chess". It is very well annotated, and Reshevsky had a fascinating style of play. As far as I know it is not available in algebraic notation, but anyone who is serious about chess should not let that keep them from an incredible amount of chess education.

learn from the legends by hansen