Andy Soltis on need for memory in opening study

Unlike many chess writers, Soltis is prepared to say that some memorisation is necessary.

The old-style rote memorisation in schools has gone out of fashion in many western countries. In some ways that is a good thing, but sometimes the balance tips too far the other way and there's no attempt to memorise anything.

This extract is from his book "Studying Chess Made Easy", Chapter 4.

// If you believe grandmasters, the worst words in chess are 'memory' and 'memorize.' "Chess cannot be played from memory," declared Siegbert Tarrasch. "I don't really memorize anything," said Tony Miles. "The student must avoid the trap of memorization," wrote Eugene Znosko-Borovsky.

This has become the 11 th Commandment: Thou shalt not memorize.

But that leaves a student bewildered. "How am I supposed to learn anything," he wonders, "unless I commit some of what I study to memory?" The answer is: You can't. Every player memorizes.

Grandmasters do it more than anyone else. GMs spend most of their study time cramming analysis into their long-term memory. They rely on memory when they play their first dozen or so moves of a game. They rely on memory when they play 'exact' endgames.

A typical GM has memorized a vast number of moves and key positions at both ends of the game. And this doesn't include the patterns and priyomes he amassed through subconscious memorization.

"Memory is very, very important," said Roman Dzindzichashvili
in a rare admission by a grandmaster. "Actually it's one of the most important things for success in this game."

In this chapter we'll try to put memorization into its proper place and explore the broader issue of how to study openings.

First, all good opening play is part memory and part understanding. You can argue about which matters more. But what is clear is you use memory first.//

Any comments welcome. 

Memorizing lines AFTER HAVING UNDERSTOOD THEM is not a bad thing.

If I understand the French, but remember none of the moves, I will play the right moves over the board, but it will take 30 minutes to play 10 moves, and have only say, 60 minutes left for the rest of the game.

If I understand the French and remember all the main lines, I could play 10 moves in 30 seconds and have 89 1/2 minutes left for the rest of the game.

If I memorize the French, and understand nothing, and White deviates with an inferior move (5.Ne2 or 5.f4 in the advance French), I would be as good as lost.  Spend 30 minutes thru move 10 to play the wrong moves rather than the right moves like in the first scenario.

The first scenario, for me, would be the Italian Game.  I understand it.  I know all the ideas.  When to play h3, when not.  When to play b4 and a4, when not.  But I do not have a bunch of lines memorized, and so it takes me time to get to move 15.

The second scenario for me would be the French Defense, of course, and hence why that was the opening used in the example.

The third scenario for me would be the Grunfeld.  Sure I know a few lines to the mid-teens, like the Seville (12.Bxf7+).  But deviate once send I am clueless.  I just do not get the Grunfeld at all.

Hope this helps distinguish the importance of understanding vs memory.  It is not 100 vs 0, but understanding an opening is more critical than memorization, though both play their parts.

@ThrillerFan

Thanks for your comments. You make some good points. Here's a bit more from Soltis:

//You begin every game by making moves that you remember are
good. Inevitably there comes a point when you reach the end of your book knowledge. That's where your memory stops and the understanding is supposed to take over.

When masters ridicule memory, they are warning you about the dangers of reaching the end of your book knowledge and not having a clue as to what to do next. That is memory without understanding. But the other extreme - understanding without memory - is just as bad.

Half of 'studying the opening' is memorization. Memory gives
you the freedom to play auto-pilot moves. Those moves enable you to reach a point in the game where you feel comfortable to be on your own. The other half of 'studying the opening' is developing an understanding of what to do afterward.//

I think he makes these remarks to correct what he perceives as a tilt too far in the direction of understanding alone. One of the other points he makes in the book is that mainline moves in many openings are not so obvious as they seem, and otb common sense and logic don't suffice. He mentions, for example, the ten moves that come after 1d4 in the Nimzo-Indian defence.

I wrote that memorisation has gone out of fashion in western countries, but in Eastern Europe and other countries extensive memorisation -learning by heart - was (is?) widely practised in the schools.

This was part of the Soviet School approach; learning tabiyas and priyomes by heart, for example. This is part of what gave the Soviet GMs their rock-solid positional understanding. They were simply more familiar with more standard positions and patterns than the western GMs with whom they played.

And it's not just for openings. I came across this quote on Amazon:

//"Former Women World Champion Alexandra Kosteniuk said she had really enjoyed De la Villa's '100 Endgames You Must Know' and had made flashcards out of the 100 positions. One side of the card had the position, the solution was written out on the reverse, and she quizzed herself until she knew all 100." -- Elisabeth Vicary ― USCF Online//

That's an approach to learning which is very effective. Once a position and its related moves are in long-term memory, it becomes a "chunk" which can be retrieved as a whole, saving a lot of time over the board.

Reshevsky and Spassky were known for their bad memories, but were excellent chess players. They could not recall opening theory. Spassky had to look at his score sheet in post game analysis.
The key part of chess is pattern recognition.
Very good is also analysis of lost games: it sticks much more in your memory.
Endgame technique is very important, but also here you do not need to memorise the moves: you should know the method.
"Of my fifty-seven years I have applied at least thirty to forgetting most of what I have learned or read. Since then, I have acquired a certain ease and cheer which I should never again like to be without. (...) I have stored little in my memory, but I can apply that little, and it is of use in many and varied emergencies. I keep it in order, but resist every attempt to increase its dead weight." - Lasker

@tygxc

//Reshevsky and Spassky were known for their bad memories, but were excellent chess players.//

True, but it was well known that the opening was Reshevsky's weak point. He used to spend a lot of time at the beginning of his games trying to figure out the opening otb, reinventing the wheel basically. This inevitably led to time trouble later on. His results would have been even better if he had had an opening repertoire at his fingertips.

I don't think this opening weakness of his was deliberate or wilful. I recall reading somewhere (can't place exactly where at the moment) about a trainer he had, who said they would spend the day going over openings, and by the evening Reshevsky had forgotten almost all of it.

#6
Yes, Reshevsky just could not recall opening theory. Nevertheless he was a child prodigy and toured Europe giving simultaneous displays at early age.
Spassky the same. In the famous 6th match game against Fischer in 1972, he had forgotten the strong move 14...Qb7 that Geller had told Spassky during their preparation.

As for Lasker, he did just enough in the opening to get himself a playable game, and then relied on his superior otb skills to dominate his opponent.

Capablanca did the same. It's well know that he was a bit of a lazy dog who preferred socialising and womanising to studying chess. But with his fantastic talent, he could get away with it.

Today, not so much. These days, even the most talented players have to put in a lot of preparation work or they will get outplayed early on.

#8
Yes, at the very top level the super grandmasters must be prepared nowadays. But at ordinary grandmaster level they can get on with little or no theory. Carlsen himself often plays weird openings against lesser grandmasters just to dodge their preparation and avoid a draw.

In his 1989 interview with Playboy Magazine, Garry Kasparov stated that memory is not important in chess. In the same interview, he also stated that his preparations for the Candidates matches interfered with his university studies, he couldn't attend classes so he passed one of his courses (I don't remember which one) by memorizing the textbook. Hmm, one of the best chess players of all time just so happens to have a phenomenal memory, but it isn't important. Okay, Garry.

@Lotus960 - It was Robert Byrne who said that about Reshevsky forgetting the lines.

@tygxc - When Carlsen plays weird openings they are also _prepared_.

@ThrillerFan - I agree understanding is more important than memorization, but they go together, as Soltis pointed out. Understanding is built out of comparing and contrasting things, which is hard to do if you keep forgetting the things you are supposed to be comparing and contrasting.

Paul Morphy memorized the Louisiana Code for his law studies. Another great player with a phenomenal memory, but again, it's not important.

Lasker was a genius, but he clearly didn't know how memory works. It's not like a cupboard, which can only hold so many items, and once it's full you can't put another item in unless you first remove something. If the facts are related then the more you have memorized, the *easier* it is to learn a new fact. For example, it's why memorizing dates is helpful for studying history. When you learn a new fact *with* its new date, you can instantly relate that fact to other facts which happened on nearby dates, even if they happened on the other side of the planet.

@yetanotheraoc

Thanks for your comments. I forgot it was Byrne who helped Reshevsky.

As for Lasker's comments on memory, I think you are correct in what you say. His was a C19 view of memory, widespread at the turn of the twentieth century. Sherlock Holmes expressed the same idea, that memory is like a little room which can be overstuffed with things. Our understanding of memory these days is much more sophisticated.

Here is Watson on Holmes:

// His ignorance was as remarkable as his knowledge. Of contemporary literature, philosophy and politics he
appeared to know next to nothing. Upon my quoting Thomas Carlyle, he inquired in the naivest way who he might be and what he had done. My surprise reached a climax, however, when I found incidentally that he was ignorant of the Copernican Theory and of the composition of the Solar System. That any civilized human being in this nineteenth century should not be aware that the earth travelled round the sun appeared to be to me such an extraordinary fact that I could hardly realize it.

“You appear to be astonished,” he said, smiling at my expression of surprise. “Now that I do know it I shall do my best to forget it.”

“To forget it!”

“You see,” he explained, “I consider that a man's brain originally is like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose. A fool takes in all the lumber of every sort that he comes across, so that the knowledge which might be useful to him gets crowded out, or at best is jumbled up with a lot of other things so that he has a difficulty in laying his hands upon it.

Now the skilful workman is very careful indeed as to what he takes into his brain-attic. He will have nothing but the tools which may help him in doing his work, but of these he has a large assortment, and all in the most perfect order. It is a mistake to think that that little room has elastic walls and can distend to any extent.

Depend upon it, there comes a time when for every addition of knowledge you forget something that you knew before. It is of the highest importance, therefore, not to have useless facts elbowing out the useful ones.”// (A Study in Scarlet)

//In his 1989 interview with Playboy Magazine, Garry Kasparov stated that memory is not important in chess...//

Ah, the days when you could pick up a copy of Playboy and say you were buying it for the chess interviews! Haha. ☺

In any domain of knowledge there is always a body of facts which must be learned. Just a vague "understanding" is not enough. So why should chess be any different?

Take medicine, for example. It's not for nothing that the standard course for physicians is a long seven years. Medical students have to learn a vast amount. Anatomy, for example, has to be learned by heart in excruciating detail because students know they will be tested on their precise recall.

Of course, all this medical knowledge must eventually be applied in real clinical settings with "understanding", but without that superstructure of learned facts no one passes their medical exams or has anything on which to base a medical opinion.

People always tend to understand and view things from their own perspective and to help themselves look better. GMs spend hundreds of hours memorizing and grow to hate it and view opening memorization as a sort of dirty and lame part of chess. They think everyone automatically understands the value of opening memorization but we to highlight their actual play. They believe it looks far better for them to have won by playing rather than memorizing. 

To an ordinary person, memorizing a lot and having the technical skills to convert the advantage is amazing. That makes them feel like a real, proper player. In contrast to this, GMs feel a bit embarrassed at doing this and they believe people realize what they did and they feel ashamed. So therefore they will jump at any opportunity to say openings don't matter a lot. What they actually mean is openings don't matter 100%.

#12
The other great players have said similar stuff:
"I had forgotten that variation. On the whole, I have a hard time remembering someone else's published analysis, a failing I have no cause to regret. Such analysis is in most cases simply ballast, weighing down the free flight of fantasy!" - Nimzovich

Often it is the less prepared player who wins. He is thinking about the position and thus gains a better understanding and a deeper concentration than his opponent who is just recalling memorised variations.

yeah but tygxc that has to be understood in a certain context. You tell that to a beginner or novice they may get the impression there is no need to study the Ruy Lopez. 

It is a myth that all GM's have exceptional memories. No top players have photographic or eidetic memories. They have an excellent memory for ONLY chess which they have developed over thousands of hours of playing. 3 years ago I couldn't memorize 1.e4 c5. But nowadays I know thousands of opening lines and remember virtually every serious game I play. Instead of the often said  "you need a good memory to become good at chess", it would be more accurate to say that "you need to be good at chess to have a good memory" (for chess)

@Steven-ODonoghue

Thanks for your interesting remark. There's a lot of research going on into how the brain adapts to the tasks it's given. The consensus is that the brain is very adaptable - 'plastic' - and becomes more effective and efficient over time in carrying out a cognitive task.

A study of London cab drivers, for example, showed that the part of the brain dealing with spatial relations expanded as trainee drivers learned and applied "The Knowledge" of London's streets.

Almost certainly, a similar process applies to chess, so explaining your experience of increased capabiliy over time.

Quote:

// London is a taxi driver’s nightmare, a preposterously large and convoluted urban jungle built up chaotically over some fifteen hundred years. This is not a city built neatly on a grid, like Manhattan or Barcelona, but a crude patchwork of ancient Roman, Viking, Saxon, Norman, Danish, and English settlement roads, all laid on top of and around one another.

Within a six-mile radius of Charing Cross Station, some twenty-five thousand streets connect and bisect at every possible angle, dead-ending into parks, monuments, shops, and private homes.

In order to be properly licensed, London taxi drivers must learn all of these driving nooks and crannies—an encyclopedic awareness known proudly in the trade as “The Knowledge.”

The good news is that, once learned, The Knowledge becomes literally embedded in the taxi driver’s brain. That’s what British neurologist Eleanor Maguire discovered in 1999 when she and her colleagues conducted MRI scans on London cabbies and compared them with the brain scans of others.

In contrast with non-cabbies, experienced taxi drivers had a greatly enlarged posterior hippocampus—that part of the brain that specializes in recalling spatial representations. On its own, that finding proved nothing; theoretically, people born with larger posterior hippocampi could have innately better spatial skills and therefore be more likely to become cabbies.

What made Maguire’s study so striking is that she then correlated the size of the posterior hippocampi directly with each driver’s experience: the longer the driving career, the larger the posterior hippocampus.

That strongly suggested that spatial tasks were actively changing cabbies’ brains. “These data,” concluded Maguire dramatically, “suggest that the changes in hippocampal gray matter … are acquired.”// ("The Genius In All Of Us" David Shenk)