Why I Love Miniature Games

A miniature game is one that ends in under 25 moves, generally because of a decisive attack or combination.  These are excellent training tools, for a number of reasons:

1. Efficient: It is possible to review several entire games in a small period of time.
2. Capitalization: One side punishes the other's mistakes.  We thus learn to recognize common mistakes and how to take advantage.
3. Thematic: The same types of mistakes occur again and again, generally from the same root causes.  This makes it easier to learn and absorb.
4. Applicable: You can apply the lessons in your own games quickly.  Contrast endgames, where you might not play an endgame you have studied for a long time.
5. Fun: Seeing someone get blasted off the board always brings a smile to my face.

This the start of a two-part series.  Today, I want to dive deep into these reasons and convince you why a portion of your study time should include miniature games.  In the follow-up, I describe exactly how to do this. If you can't wait until then, feel free to click on this mystery link.  It may or may not take you to a free video series on miniature games by a certain chess blogger.

Spoiler Alert: I have created a new video series on miniature games.

What to Do and What to Avoid

Chess is a really hard game.  Mistakes lurk around every corner.  In any given position, there are several dozen bad moves and only a few good one.  Budding chess players need to learn both sides of this coin.  That is, we want to avoid blunders, of course, but we also want know what to do.  There are few things more frustrating than reaching a position and not having a clue on what to do next.

Miniature games help train both of these aspects.  Miniatures fall under one of three categories:

1. One Big Mistake, allowing a winning attack or combination
2. Several Small Mistakes, which culminate into a winning attack or combination
3. The Unforced Error, where someone blunders an elementary tactic and resigns

This last one isn't that interesting and of limited use, but the first two feature prime learning material.  When you see the "One Big Mistake," you see immediately why that move was wrong and you see how to punish it.  You see both the mistake and the follow-up, so you are learning to spot the mistake and how to punish it.

My favourite, though, is the "Several Small Mistakes" category.  Perhaps White wastes time, allowing Black to get a lead in development.  Then White pushes too hard on the Qside, allowing Black to get a dangerous attack.  Finally, in a difficult situation, White doesn't find the key defensive resource to keep him in the game, allowing Black a winning combination.  Such a game is filled with learning gold, and it is relatively easy to see.

Prime Education

I can't stress enough this "ease" aspect.  Chess is a hard game, and if you watch two Grandmasters square off, a complex game of 40+ moves lasts until the endgame.  They maneuver, feint, make waiting moves and defend against threats six moves ahead.  Mistakes tend to be microscopic, and it can be really hard to see how an exchange on move 12 changes the evaluation on move 32.

Miniature games avoid all of this.  There is a mistake, and it gets punished brutally.  It is black and white.  As such, it is much easier to identify the mistake and to see why the winning follow-up worked.  It gives a crystal-clear signal: if you see X (unnecessary pawn moves, falling behind in time, not castling, etc), then do Y (push pawns, open lines, start attacking, etc).  Once you learn this, you can start understanding and appreciating the more and more subtle types of mistakes.  It's the foundation on which your "recognizing mistake" skillset gets built.

Further, miniatures games are, by definition, short.  This means you can review many of them in a short time.  This has a compounding effect, as you see the same mistakes and the same refutations over and over.  If you see five games where Black delays castling and White blows open the center to mate him, when you next play and see your opponent delay castling, what is your first thought?  Blow open the center and mate him.

I can't describe the euphoria the first I felt this.  I was walking on air.  For a brief moment, I understood chess, or at least a part of it.  I have no words... except to say it felt really good.  And once you do it once, you know you can do it again.  The world opens up.  Once you were blind and now you can see.

Patterns and Causes

The more games you witness, the more patterns you will see.  Some of these are specific; frankly, it is amazing how often a premature ...h6 leads to Black's ruin.  Others are more general, such as trying to grab a pawn at the expense of developing.  This can occur in almost any position, yet the basic follow-up is almost universal: push pawns, open lines, attack.

For me, though, the real magic comes from taking one more step back.  Beyond the patterns, I started seeing the root causes of these mistakes.  Why did Black delay castling?  Ahh, because he wanted to avoid doubled pawns.  He was too focused on pawn structure in a position where King safety was paramount.

Or why did White go pawn grabbing?  Clearly she was focused on material.  Every previous move she was trying to win a pawn, and now she couldn't resist.  That cost her time, though, and now the counter-attack blows her off the board.

In my view, this is the ultimate, clearest form of vision.  You look at the board and see the "lies", the false things that distract a player: pawn structure, material, two Bishops, positional nuances, etc etc.  You see that, but you can also see the "truth", that none of that matters.  Pawn structure, material and all the rest might matter in a different position, but right here, right now, it doesn't.  It is false.  The only thing that matters is X, the game continuation.

In other words, you see the tempting wrong moves but you know, truly know, the right move.  Even better than that, you know the underlying cause of that move, on what makes it the right move.  The more you do this, the more patterns you learn and the more root causes you absorb, which lets you play the right moves in more and more positions.

And that leads to a lot of really pretty wins.

Other Benefits

Miniature games have a host of other benefits.  First off, tactics.  Virtually every game involves a tactical finish.  You will see many common tactics and attacking motifs, which will improve your tactical vision.  This happens even if you just look at the games passively, I've found, but it increases tenfold if you engage in the position.  "After the sacrifice, what happens if White tries X instead?  Can White decline it?  Does playing Z on the previous move stop it?"

Seriously, this will skyrocket your tactical vision. It's probably better than puzzles.  In a puzzle, you know there is a solution.  In a miniature game, you don't know.  Maybe the combination was objectively flawed.  Maybe a different move saves the game.  You have to think like you would in a real game, which means the tactics you see here are the same tactics you would find in a game.  You will avoid that common annoyance of finding brilliant sacrifices in puzzles but not in your own games.

Second, you can train your memory with them, especially with very short games.  At one point, I made a point of memorizing every miniature game I saw.  That is, I would play through the game once, analyze it, then close the book and try to replay all the moves.  Surprisingly, I picked this up really quickly.  Most games did not stick in my memory longterm, but some did, and I'm sure this had a positive effect on my results.

Third, you get really good at openings.  Not because you know "theory", but because you internalize the basic principles and common tactics.  As a youngster, roughly 95% of my opening knowledge came from Tarrasch's book, nearly 100 years outdated, and these miniature games.  Nevertheless, I played the opening reasonably well and rarely got in early trouble.

Indeed, I think miniature games are an excellent way to learn a new opening.  Say you are interested in learning the French Defence.  Look at 5 miniature French wins to see what common patterns emerge, and then look at 5 miniature losses to see what can go wrong.  This will give you a good clue on whether this opening is right for you (maybe White's play looks more fun!) and will arm you with some common patterns. 

(As an aside, I tried to learn the Qxd5 Scandinavian for a bit, and when I did this miniature game search, I found thousands of fast White wins but very few fast Black wins.  This should have been a warning sign!  I never did that great with the Scandi, and I think this played a part.)

Finally, they are fun.  Remember Morphy's Opera game?  That's a miniature game. Everyone loves it. Most miniature games aren't at that level, but some come close and most are entertaining.  If your chess training is fun, you will do it more than if it isn't.  One reason I'm really good at openings and not endgames is because studying miniature games is really fun ... and studying endgames isn't...

Some Limitations

Hopefully you are on the miniature game bandwagon now and will sprinkle these into your training.  That said, you should know of some limitations.  Miniatures help in a lot of ways but have no effect on others.

First off, it doesn't help your endgame. This is obvious: if the game is over by move 25, you never reach the endgame!  There might be some residual effect, in that your games will survive the opening more and likely reach more endgames in practice.  Mostly, though, the benefits are limited to the opening and middlegame.

Second, and more seriously, it can skew your objectivity.  If every game you see ends with a devastating attack, you start to expect that.  You might over-evaluate your position or under-estimate your opponent's resources.  In my case, I tend to be extremely positive about my positions.  If I'm a little better, I think I'm winning; if it's equal, I think I'm better; if I'm worse ... I still think I'm a little better!  This might be a carry-over from my optimistic disposition generally, but I think miniature games also conditioned me to assume a winning tactic is always around the corner.

Third, though you'll get lots of exposure to attacking and dynamic middlegame positions, you will have less exposure to more strategic ones.  For example, you will see lots of Greek Gifts with Bxh7, but you won't see many Minority Attacks or Maroczy Binds.  Indeed, I don't think I knew about the minority attack until I was 1800 or so.  I certainly never used it in my own games.

So miniature games don't teach everything, but what they do teach, they teach very well.

Conclusion

In the chess world, I am most well-known for my Chessable course, Smithy's Opening Fundamentals.  Every game and every game fragment in it is a miniature game.  The ideas I used and the various tactics were all inspired by miniature games.  In order words, take a bunch of miniature games, organize them, add in a few words and you get a pretty decent course.

Imagine discovering these ideas yourself.  You would ingrain them deep inside your mind, on autopilot, effortless.  You can read something a thousand times and forget it in an instant, but if you discover it yourself, it's yours forever.  If you take this journey, that's what is waiting on the other side.  It's really cool.

Also really cool: my new course on miniature games.  If I did my job right, it will give you all the benefits I described here.  I hope it is your gateway to this endlessly fascinating world.  And it's free.  In truth, it started as a YouTube series, but my friend NM Matt Jensen said it would be more powerful as a course.  Either way, check it out, and may you find miniature games half as enjoyable as I do.  Good luck.