Analyzing a chessgame properly?

Somebody explained to me lately that spending 30 mins going through a gm game won't teach you anything (not sure if that's a gold rule of chess or just applies to beginners like me)

So for the last 2 days I've taken it REAL slow. I'm analyzing one of the most famous games, Paul Morphys 1858 game, against count Isouard\Duke karl.  The problem is, I can make general speculations in notable areas of the game (say... when Morphy sacs his knight for the nice bishop pin setup). But for the life of me when I flip the board and try to find how black could of stopped morphy, I fail badly. It's like a bias I can't shake off.

All I could get out of this game was:

*don't favor weak attacks over controling the center (not that I could identify a 'weak attack'.)

*Don't play an opening you know nothing about (wow no kidding dummy!)

*White gained an advtange because black gave white an oppertunity to bring the queen out early without danger.

*Black should of played 9.Na6, putting pressure on whites queen, and forcing white to consider exchanging the bishop for knight. (I think this is the only good thing I learned, but only because a little birdy named fritz suggested it to me).

So what would be your suggestion for proper analysis? And is the points I made about this particular game correct or unhelpful? Thank you chessfriends!

I don't really analyze GM games unless they are model games for openings I am trying to play or something.

I do analyze my own games.

Recently, I started using an analysis process which is very long and time-consuming, but gives me great analysis and no doubt helps me with my chess. It does use computers, but not until the end, and until then, you get great training by doing your own analysis.

First, you write down all the thoughts you remember having had during the game and when. Also make note of the time on the clock at all the key points.

Then, you use a large database to look up the opening in the game and continue all the way through, exploring every variation, until your game goes out of book. The point here is to see whether or not you played perfectly, and whether or not you plan to use those same moves again if the opponent plays the same way. Additionally, you can see whether your opponent played the best moves. This part usually takes a good two hours or so if you are really doing it correctly.

The next part, and the hard part, is the Dry Analysis, as I like to call it. Basically, you go from the position that your game went out of book, and then challenge yourself to find the best move on every turn for both players for the rest of the game. Examine and write down your thoughts for all notable variations and try to annotate the game, assigning evaluations and exclamation points or question marks on the moves that deserve them. For a complicated game, this part has the potential to take more than three hours.

The last part is the Engine Analysis. This is where you check over your Dry Analysis to see what you got right and what you didn't. The engine may, in the case of one of my most recent games, spot a hard-to-see tactic that you wouldn't have seen during Dry Analysis, or provide more accurate evaluations. This part should take about an hour. It's important to do engine analysis last because doing it early on is like looking at the answers to a test- you get the answers but you don't build the relevant muscles by doing the Dry Analysis.

Of course at the end you can put it all together into a completed game analysis and publish it or show strong players and see what they think. The whole process should take at least five or six hours total.

It may be applicable to a GM game. You can still go through the opening to see where it went out of book, you can still do Dry Analysis, and you can still do Engine Analysis. But until you get to at least a high class level in your rating, analyzing games of GMs won't do you much good. GMs are so subtle in their play and so perfect in their moves that you won't learn much- they don't normally make mistakes that are instructive to normal players.

Thank you for the very helpful advice. I think you nail it on the head when you say "you get the answers but you don't build the relevant muscles by doing the dry analysis". I think this is the solution to my 'bias' dilemma!

My opening play is amazingly sloppy so your opening book comparison technique is something good to try too. And I also agree that maybe I should invest time analyzing my own games, as it may be a bit overwhelming at my level to try and work out the moves of somebody like Morphy... 

Thanks again.

One thing that might be helpful in analysis for both GM and own game is getting a feel for about where the game turned when one side wins. Usually it's because the loser made a mistake either subtle or big. Once you know where and how the loser slipped, then you can see how that mistake was exploited by the winner. It's probably also useful to try to find a better continuation from the losing spot that might've saved the outcome. After awhile, hopefully, you'll perceive those critical moments in your games and take the right action.

For GM games, it's usually really useful to ask "Why did he make that move?" on every move. GM's do not make moves without a reason. Some reason's might be: cover key squares, open lines, pressure a weakness, defend a weakness, exchange with a certain advantage, etc. After awhile, again hopefully, you get a feel for how a GM thinks OTB and puts together a plan and carries it out and that certainly can't hurt your own play.

Very good point Nckchrls. I've wasted too much time with just looking at games for 5 minutes and saying "oh that's how white/black won...". Practical improvements have been happening to me personally as of late ever since I've done what dpnorman suggested with the dry analysis of my OWN games, plus trying to calculate better lines for the losing side of games as you mentioned. 

Very helpful advice guys thank you.

I wrote about an analysis process recently here: http://becomingachessmaster.com/2015/05/09/how-to-analyse-and-annotate-your-chess-games/

Another thing to keep in mind when analyzing GM games, and this is where the "30 minutes is not enough" comes into play.

After each move (not counting the opening), try to figure out why each move was played:

1) Did the opponent's previous move impose a threat.  Keep in mind that a threat is not just "he's attacking my Queen".  A threat might be that he threatens to put a Knight on a square that attacks my loose Bishop, and once I move that Bishop, the Knight proceeds to the next square that forks my two Rooks.  That is still a threat even though the current Knight move doesn't directly attack a piece.

2) Is the threat REALLY a threat.  It looks like the next move, he's going to fork my Queen and Rook, but I can respond with a Queen check that he can't answer with a move that attacks the Queen (like a Bishop interpose), and then I'll be able to move my rook, so while it looks like he's threatening a fork, it's not a threat at all!

3) Is the move currently being played stopping a threat by the opponent?

4) Even if the opponent's threat is genuine, does the player on move have a greater threat?  For example, the opponent threatens to fork my two rooks, BUT, the move I am about to make threatens to pin the opponent's queen to his king, and I'm doing it with my Bishop, so if he forks the two rooks, I pin the Queen to the King, he takes one of the two rooks, I take the Queen, and he takes the Bishop.  Even if I can't get the Knight back, I'd get a Queen for Rook and Bishop.  So why stop his threat?  I'm going forward with a bigger threat.  That may be why the GM played a move different than what you might expect.

5) Is the move currently being played imposing threats on the opposing player?

6) Is there a threat to dominate a section of the board rather than simply a threat to win material?

7) Did his move, or is the move I'm looking at making, imposing a fatal weakness?  That may be a weak pawn, or it may be a very weak empty square, like e5 if Black has pawns on d5, e6, and f5, that the other side can later use as a launch pad for attacking.

8) Are there no current threats, and is he simply improving the position of his worst placed piece?

9) For pieces in the opponent's territory (i.e. a White Knight on d5 or a Black Bishop on c2, just as examples), are they actually doing something useful, or can they easily be worked around?  Just because you have a Knight in the opponent's half of the board doesn't mean the Knight is good if it can't do anything useful from its current location.

10) Are both sides keeping a consistent plan, or is one side having to constantly switch gears, having to defend threats all the time?  (Concept of initiative).

There are many other questions that you can ask about a position.  The list goes on.  This is why it takes a long time to properly analyze a chess game.

I would recommend, rather than just pulling up a morphy game and try to analyze it yourself, get one of the "Move by Move" books by Everyman on one of the GMs (Not an Opening book), and if you are lower rated, preferably one of the older players, like Capablanca Move by Move, or Lasker Move by Move, etc.  There's a number of them either currently out or in the works to be released soon.

Sorry for the late response ThrillerFan. That's a logical checklist for searching for counter tactics, and the importance of double checking your opponents threat.  There's nothing worse than looking back at an old game only to realize you wasted a perfect oppertunity for a back rank mate, or pinning the opponents piece helplessly and perhaps reversing into a nasty counter attack.

Another thing I've realized too is that playing LESS games (avoiding something like 20 games a day, a few is alright) helps reinforce what I've learned in my analysis, hence I'm keeping the good data in my mind and leaving less chance for developing bad habbits, something that is very easy to form in chess lol.

Thanks for the good read :)