Model games for newbs to read?

[Thestatusquo]

I disagree with all the criteria except the last one.

On the 1, I don't see how number of replacements being low makes the game better as a learning experience. To the contrary, I think that will hinder learning. Very rare is a game without many a replacement, and reading replacements and comparing them to their replacees is all part of the suite of skills a noob should want to build.

On the two, I think that first, what is or is not "standard" is going to be very difficult to define. Is fritzler standard? How about BJ, or IS? I think when you start trying to exclude which play styles you are willing to "showcase" you are going to inherently exclude some which can be very beneficial. Second, I think that censoring what gambits and play they're exposed to is bad because it limits the experience they're going to gain from reading those games. You need to see ABR claim cop with a guilty when he's vanilla townie and get both him and the real cop lynched for it to know that it's probably a bad play to do that. Limiting the newbies vision to just positive games does not let them grow, it just tells them to fit into a mold.