Know your History

Below are .pgns (text files readable by chess programs) devoted to the games of some of the greatest players in chess history. They are also some of the most interesting / important players for improvement. Every teacher worth their salt recommends the games of the great masters to their students. Here, I’m trying to make it easy for those student to find those games.

The pgn files come from Bill Wall’s Chess Page, a tremendous (if overwhelming) resource for chess data. Almost all of them are the bare game scores from books about the players. While the files are not complete records of the player’s games, they are, generally speaking, handpicked collections of their best games. This means that the games you’ll study here are all worth your attention.

Chess moves cannot be copyrighted, so there is no issue to the games being hosted here. Note that I make no warranty as to the veracity of any of these files, and that I am not the creator of these files. Also note that the data here may not be clean, standardized, etc. You’ll need to buy a professionally curated database to ensure standardization. Thanks to Bill Wall for allowing me to collect and rehost the data here.

The original books, with the original annotations, are certainly preferable to these files. Still, I’m convinced that you can learn quite a bit by going through these games. Engines (usually included in the software packages / apps described below) can help you answer questions you might have about specific moves.

My advice is to proceed chronologically. Begin with Morphy and work your way down the list. Don’t worry about understanding every nuance and detail. You’re trying to get a general sense of these games and players, at least at first, and you can always go back later and analyze in depth. You should also consider buying well-annotated game collections – the insights given there will far outstrip those gleaned from the engines.

To read the data and play through the games, I provide links to a few readers. The list is not exhaustive, but I have used these and can recommend them. All are free to download.

Windows:
ChessBase Reader
ChessX

iOS
Everyman Chess Viewer

Android
Everyman Chess Viewer

PLAYERS

Paul Morphy
Palau-Paul Morphy.pgn
Soltis – Morphy Chess Masterpieces.pgn | replayable version
Sergeant-Morphy_Games.pgn

Wilhelm Steinitz
Neistadt – Steinitz.pgn | replayable version

Mikhail Chigorin
Adams – Mikhail_Chigorin.pgn | replayable version

Emanuel Lasker
Hannak-Lasker.pgn | replayable version

Frank Marshall
Marshall – Best Games.pgn | replayable version
Soltis – Frank Marshall.pgn

Aron Nimzowitsch
Reinfeld – Nimzovich the Hypermodern.pgn

Harry Nelson Pillsbury
Watts – Pillsburys Chess Career.pgn
Soltis – Pillsbury the Extraordinary.pgn

Akiba Rubinstein
Razuvaev-Rubinstein.pgn
Kmoch – Rubinstein’s Chess Masterpieces.pgn | replayable version