So far, no surprises. Nothing I've said is new. Here's my personal twist: save your very best games in a separate spot. At the click of a button, you can revisit all your favourite chess moments, your brilliancies, your crushing victories. Heck, whenever you play an interesting game, one that fascinates you or gives you a rush just from remembering it, save it here as well.
I've done this for years, and I'll share the concrete benefits I've received from it.
1. It's Fun & Feels Good!
Let's get the obvious one out of the way: looking at your wins feels good! The classic chess improvement advice tells us to focus on our losses. Figure out why we lose, then fix that. This makes perfect sense, but it can get a little depressing. We always look at our mistakes, at what went wrong, at our silliest decisions, and we can fall into a cycle of negativity. The harder the loss, the worse we feel. It's easy to see why so many people don't do this consistently.
Creating a best games database goes in the complete opposite direction. It barely requires any work at all. Assuming you play online, go load all your games, sort by your wins, and then click through them. Most games are simply average, nothing special, but some jump out. Maybe it was a big attack, maybe a fancy sacrifice, maybe you beat someone 200 points higher than you. Awesome. Save that.
I use the expensive ChessBase program, but you can do this pain-free online as well. On lichess, a super-easy but super-hidden feature is the "Bookmark function". It only appears if you bring your mouse close to it, but it allows you to effectively "favourite" your best games.
You can then find all these games in your lichess profile by clicking on the games tab:
I call this the best games database, but it doesn't have to be your "best" games. It can be any memorable, positive experience. I have lots of games filled with mistakes and poor decisions, but if looking at it gives me thrills and chills, then I save it. Those are exactly the feelings I'm looking to recreate and nourish with this process.
Creating this database should not feel like work. You are revisiting all your personal chess highlights and re-living your best moments. It's fun! And because of that, you are more likely to do it.
2. It Lifts Your Spirits
Once you have this database, you can start reaping the benefits. One of the main benefits is simple happiness. Sometimes I get sad. Sometimes I play terrible chess and drop every game I play, even against much weaker opposition. Or maybe I play a great game but then throw it away with an earth-shattering blunder. These are the absolute worst chess experiences. They are also inevitable. Everyone goes through these, and most of us want to quit, never look at the board again when they happen.
The best games database helps break free from this negative cycle. Rather than focusing on you at your worst, you get to see you at your best. My database also includes pretty tactics and ideas, which helps remind me that chess can be beautiful, too. This might be all the nudge I need to start feeling better. Often clicking through just a few games is enough to improve my mood and make me think chess isn't such a terrible game after all.
Chess is a cruel game. It will make you feel like crap at times. A best games database is akin to insurance, to prevent the bad feelings from lingering.
3. Discover Trends in Your Games
You might think the first two benefits are too ephemeral. "Give me something concrete, Smithy." Fair enough, so here goes. Undoubtedly, looking at your losses help you fix your weak points. Well, looking at your wins, and particular your best games, gives you the opposite perspective: it tells you what you do well.
In my case, I have always played open games very well, higher than my rating. This is literally the oldest game in my database: I'm a piece down, but I'm using the open lines to full effect and win the game in just a few moves:
And this is a game played right before getting back into chess full-time just a few years ago:
In both games, I dominate the open board and, in particular, my Rooks are miles better than my opponent's. In between these two games, I have numerous others that do the same thing. Indeed, when I flick through this database quickly, two dominant themes shine bright and center: I love open games where my pieces can move freely, and I love games where I stifle all opponent counterplay. These are my chess strengths, or at least the things that feel really good when I can do them!
I can also go in the opposite direction and look at what is missing. For example, endgames: I only have 7 games in my database that extend beyond move 40, and two of those are saved for middlegame themes. I've played hundreds of endgames, but virtually none make my list. Similarly, I have several examples of Good Knight vs Bad Bishop, but only a small handful featuring me using the Two Bishops in any meaningful way. Maybe I should focus on these.
In short, if we only look at our losses, we definitely see our weaknesses but we miss seeing our strengths. Recognizing and harnessing our innate chess strengths can help us win games just as much, and maybe even easier, than fixing our weakest links.
Edit: For fun, I ran the numbers, and in my 76 best game database:
- 37% of games involved a meaningful sacrifice;
- 41% had Bishops play a prominent role;
- 52% had Knights being a main actor; and,
- 63% had Rooks playing a big role.
This confirms my subjective observations above: I use my Rooks really well. That's something I can lean into. I also have a slight bias towards Knights, though it's basically 50/50 if we exclude my earliest games. I didn't count the number of Two Bishop games, but it's minuscule, single-digit. So there's my mission: play some great Two Bishop games so I can boost that number.
4. Encourages Critical Thinking
Back to an ephemeral benefit, but this is important. Going through all your victories is inherently fun, but you also have to decide whether any particular game is good enough to be among your best. In other words, you need to look at the game, pause and then think critically. That is basically a chess skill right there!
Be ruthless. This isn't a "database of pretty good games" or "all game where I win my opponent's queen." Most games shouldn't make the cut. You want the ones that stand out and the ones that spark something inside you.
I've played thousands of games. The vast majority have faded away. Some, though, I click through the first few moves and instantly the memory comes flooding back. I get that shiver of anticipation. It's only move 6, but I know what happens by move 26. The maneuvers, the tactics, the general flow of the game, it all passes through my mind. I can't keep the smile off my face. And it's only move 6!
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| It doesn't look like much, but I instantly know which game this is and it already makes me happy. |
When you find a game like that, when you feel that rush, that's one that you save.
GM Avetik from ChessMood gives the following advice to coaches: rate all your training positions on a scale of 1-10, and throw away anything less than 8. You can apply this same idea to your best games. Maybe you played a good game, but it's only rated a 7. Don't include it. Keep your best games your best games. Use that as your guideline.
Conclusion
I can't tell you how many hours I've browsed through my personal best games database, nor the amount of pleasure I've gotten from it. From a pure enjoyment perspective, it's perhaps the best thing I've ever done with chess. Along the way, I've realized benefits beyond raw enjoyment: it lifts me up when I feel down, it forces me to think critically and it identifies what I do well.
I haven't even mentioned annotations. Annotations are the next step, but you can get all these benefits just from sitting back and observing. I highly recommend it. It's certainly served me well.
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