How do I memories openings.

you don't need to memorise openings. You need to UNDERSTAND them. Which two openings you know?

You don't memorize openings. You shall focus on understanding the moves in the opening. With understanding memorizing follows naturally.

No-one can memorize every thing. And if you memorize you will be dead lost when out of your memory variation.

So understand each move in your opening: why is White doing this, and why is Black answering that? Then play, and after each game compare the game with your theory and try to understand why the theory move is better that the one you or your opponent played (if it is). In this way you depen your understanding and will naturally memorize more moves.

Another reason why you don't memorize openings, which I learned the hard way in the past.

Take two openings (of many) that I happen to know double-digit moves deep:

French Winawer - Poisoned Pawn Variation - 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 Bb4 4.e5 Ne7 5.a3 Bxc3+ 6.bxc3 c5 7.Qg4 Qc7 8.Qxg7 Rg8 9.Qxh7 cxd4 10.Ne2 Nbc6 11.f4 dxc3 12.Qd3 d4 13.Nxd4 Nxd4 14.Qxd4 Bd7 15.Rb1 Nf5 16.Qf2 Qc6 17.Bd3 Qd5 18.Be3 Nxe3 19.Qxe3 Rxg2 20.Rxg2 Qxg2 21.Be4 Qxh2 22.O-O-O Bc6 23.Bxc6+ bxc6 and now 24.Qd4 or 24.Qe4, both leading to a draw with best play.

Grunfeld Defense - Seville Variation - 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 d5 4.cxd5 Nxd5 5.e4 Nxc3 6.bxc3 c5 7.Bc4 Bg7 8.Ne2 O-O 9.Be3 Nc6 10.O-O Bg4 11.f3 Na5 12.Bxf7+ Rxf7 13.fxg4

Now, just because I can reel off a bunch of moves means nothing. Do I UNDERSTAND these moves? Do I know why, in some cases, the opposing side has other options, and when those options are bad?

Take the French Poisoned Pawn - What if White plays 5.Bd2? What about 7.h4? What about 12.h4 (The Bazooka Variation)? What about 15.Rb1? Why is 10.f4 bad? Why is 10.cxd4 bad? It's called the "Poisoned Pawn", which pawn is poison? (I hear people say g7, it's not, it's d4 - the d4-pawn is Poisoned as 10.cxd4?? Qc3+ wins a rook! I can actually explain what White and Black are doing with the position, what the critical ideas are, where play should be aimed for both players, etc. For example, if you go the full line and 24.Qd4, the move 24...a5 is forced to basically avoid zugzwang. White has the initiative with the control of the d-file, but it is not winning for White if Black defends properly. 24...Kf8, for example, loses.

Now take the Seville Variation of the Grunfeld. Sure, I can reel off 13 moves. Now what? Do I have any clue what I'm doing? No! What about if White plays the Russian Variation with 4.Nf3 and 5.Qb3? Any idea what to do? Uhm, No! Let's say I'm White - Any idea what to do against an early ...Nc6 without ...c5? Uhm, NO! If you cannot tell, I really don't understand the Grunfeld. Even if they played that exact line, do I have any idea what to do afterwards? NO!

This is why you don't memorize. You need to understand what you are studying. I understand the Polish Opening, French Defense, and Dutch Defense, and hence why I play them in tournament play, and not some other random opening where I can reel off book moves, but have no idea what I am doing others, like in the Grunfeld, Alekhine, or Dragon.

memorizing openings is only beneficial if your opponent knows the same theory. no matter how much theory you know, it doesn't matter if your opponent deviates. now calculations and understanding are your best tools.

As a modestly rated 750, I agree. When I first started truly studying and playing chess, even before I made this account, I played the London System. Did I know the moves to set it up? Yes! Did I know to play Bf4 before e3? Yes! Did I know the plans in the middlegame? No!

You should ALWAYS know the reasons for playing each move, along with the concepts of the opening and middlegame strategies. Otherwise, you MEMORIZED an opening, but you dont KNOW anything!

TOTALLY useless advice if, like me, the OP is positionally challenged and realizes that memorizing is the ONLY way for them to improve their openings. I still get tripped up bad in the opening occasionally.

there is NO one size fits all advice or style of play, and YES memorizing transpositions and move order crap is very difficult.

what works BEST for me is just drilling the theory one line at a time until i KNOW I have a line memorized before going onto another and then rinse and repeat. it allowed me to get 90% with the smith morra a decade ago before black did HIS homework, but I've crawled back to at least winning by a few % through intuition.

WORST is RANDOM "fixed space repetition" which does more harm than good as far as im concerned

Halloween Gambit and IBMG

If you are "positionally challenged", then perhaps THAT is the facet of your game that you should be working on... not openings.

Piggybacking off this question. When you memorize games do you remember the list of moves then visualise the board, or, do you visualise the board and see the moves in order? Small followup. Do people visualise a real chess board and set, or the 2d board that chessbase and the like use?

A: with your brain!

NOPE. trust me, I know how my brain works, or doesn't, better than you

no Dunning Krueger happening here.

I am ENTIRELY unable to VISUALIZE positional concepts. It might be related to my name & number dyslexia. I TRIED to learn the "SIMPLE" pawn ending and NONE of my 4 top rated chess books, including "best lessons of a chess coach" could teach it! The ONLY way I ever learned it was by DRILLING with the FICS tutorial that whizzed me off because I couldn't re-drill whenever I wanted and was only by schedule.

When I FINALLY got to a pawn ending a month later, I lost because I forgot the mumbo jumbo. Positional Concepts might as well be in Chinese which I actually speak better. HAW! (yes) which puts the BOO (no) in BOOks.

I only understand pieces and what they can DO. pawns drive me nuts... a big reason i despise closed and hypermodern games I bet.

Now Boden mating with a bishop pair in a corner? I got that INSTANTLY and STILL retain it with one simple concept... move the king to waste a tempo. EASY PEASY!

Memorizing theory is the ONLY workaround FOR ME. It's tedious hard work, and doesn't stay with me long, but it's what works. It give me the positional base I need to do my tactical thing in the middle game.

I envy the rest of you who don't suffer this limitation and despise you pawn pushing raggafraggas over the board, but it's OK... I out tactic fellow tacticians on double edged turf and have a juicy 14% of wins miniature Stat doing my thing my way.

I don't play to win with "perfect style", but as fast as I can BEFORE opponents can crush me positionally.

No, you are simply using a cop out to not adjust how your brain works.

There is a reason you are barely 1400. You know a lot less than you think!

You need to be studying books on strategy and positional play.

indeed. A Great Player once recommended memorizing and playing through, every opening line: all the variations, the deviations and even the footnotes from a MCO to improve in chess as his first lesson. And for the second lesson: do it again! Heh. However sarcastically it was said, I believe he said this with sincerity, and it has always stuck with me. But then, he had an idyllic memory, great devotion, will and insane talent for chess...

I'm totally not saying you should do that too (although I tried & failed) because as mere mortals that is a huge undertaking and not practical anyways (believe me, I KNOW). How you memorize openings or to add on, is to have a Purpose, Intention or Connection... basically, a Specific Reason.

In other words, don't blindly memorize just any opening, line or variation. It's like creating a playlist, Manga collection-Focus on a Theme, Genre... which adds Value to you. Narrowing it down in this way will make it easier to assimilate the next one. Hope this helps.

eidetic.

An eidetic memory.

@blueemu appreciate the correction 🤙🏼