alumbrado has made me quite happy cos I found a nice hardback version of Speelman's book, after looking for sometime. By personal favs are Botvinniks's three volumne set, nice explanations with less known training games too, and the two volumne Petrosian game collection. This one gives un-updated analysis, which probably has big holes if Fritz where let loose on it, but gives a nice feel for the times.
                    Currently looking through one of the Smyslov set, from same house as the Botvinnik one above. Like Karpov, tends to analysis like defeat is inevitable for his opponent, but really like his games at the moment. Of the many Karpov collections like "chess at the top" best. Kasparov's books on two matches against Karpov are great, but the analysis spiralls out of control in some games.
                 I found Timman's book on Curacao 1962 very disappointing. He seems much more interested in the politics of the event, than looking at the games.

Bye John S

The collections i own of players is only 3. Life and Games of Mikhail Tal being my favorite for a lot fo reasons. Tal was one of the best chess writers even by todays standars. The games are fun to go over and the stories are jsut as fun to read. I will often read just the stuff before or after a game just to learn more about his history and skip over the games to a later point.

I have Botviniks 100 selected games which i pretty good. A lot of the openings he employs in it i wouldnt go near but its good for improiving your chess and i actually purchased it for only 8$ US. This was awesome to me as i think it is worth much more than that.

Then i have Sid Packards: The collected games of Willhelm Steinitz. Steinitz was my first inspiration in chess. And his game collection even thoush short on the annotations is extremely rewarding. Some 200 and somthing games are annotated by the man himself.

I also have a copy of the modern chess instructor which is of couurse a very old opening reference by the first world champion but it is a very interesting book in a historical perspective.

But tournament collections are probley my favorite. I have Zurich 53 and AVRO which was a very very strong tournament. If they put out a book on the latest fide tournement i would be sure to buy that as well. The chess played there was not bland by any means. Topalov did an amazing job and i have to give  shout out to Morozevich who is a personal hero of mine as his play is highly original he didnt continue his hot streak but he played well beating and drawing the strongest players there. Leko,Anand,Topalov. Thats impressive.

A collection i want to get though is Alekhines games. He was one of the most agressive players of all time. In many ways he was the precursor to Tal, and Kasparov.

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Thanks, but they are long enough already.  

I am guessing he does because he also has a copy up at ebay right now.  However, it is for a "buy it now" price that is even higher.  

Labate was supposed to get all of Chess Digest's old inventory.  However, I think the deal fell through before completion.  He does have a good bit of it though.  A lot of old but still brand new books.  Most of them are crappy opening pamphlets but there is a good bit of quality too.

I am happy to have been of service to you.

Here ya go, Smyslov_Fan:

http://www.labatechess.com/store/product_info.php?cPath=21_103&products_id=84&os...

Here are three more excellent game collections.

Tal vs Botvinnik World Championship 1960. This is a masterpiece, and the analysis and commentary is done by Tal himself.

Wijk aan Zee Grandmaster Chess Tournament 1975 This one is also quite good, with annotations by Kavalek, Browne, Geller, Gligoric, Hort, Hubner, Langeweg, Portisch, Smejkal, Sosonko, Timman.

500 Master Games of Chess by Dr. S. Tartakower and J. Du Mont. A very nice collection of annotated games sorted into Open Games, Semi Open Games and Closed Games. You will find some entertaining oldie goldies and perhaps some old wine you can put in a new bottle as well.

Toppylov

Alekhine's game collection edited by Joh Nunn is good. He highlights all the bottlenecks of Alekhine's annotation. He highlighed one aspect which I concur. His annotations seem to say, "Hey, I won this game, which means opponent had no chance.

Another factor is he enumerates all the strategic ideas of the game in one move, giving an impression he thougth about all these in the move in question.

I fully agree with TopNotch, that Lutikov and Juchtman (how do Americans pronounce Yukhtman ?) deserve a game collection. The first one beat Kortsjnoj in Leningrad 1951 and the second Tal in Tbilisi 1959. The openings they used, belong to TopNotch's favourites