THAT's why I memorize! I don't understand positional AT ALL! It can't be VISUALIZED like tactics. my brain is allergic to abstraction. I can't even wrap my head around a "simple for everyone else" pawn ending. I tried to in FOUR different books including best lessons of a chess coach. the ONLY time I ever got it, was playing FICS (scheduled NOT on demand!!!) tutorial but a month later when I finally got to a pawn ending... EVERYTHING had long since evaporated.
just like theory, I'd need to keep refreshing myself on it.
mating with a bishop pair? I got that INSTANTLY and can still do it easy.
THAT is why I play gambits! they let me use my TACTICAL skillset and I'm really good at tactics. it also helps me see threats unless I'm so wrapped up in an attack with a frustrating pawn pusher opponent that I stop paying attention to moves that don't look threatening at a glance. I would do much better if I could calm down, but PTSD blurs my logic in intense situations.
the first time I got up to 1650, a decade ago, I eventually developed a calm calculating rhythm where I was constantly calculating on my opponent's clock where I'm back to wait and see mode now.
after giving chess up because no one would create a tree editor/trainer a decade ago BECAUSE of the scandinavian advance, sicilian AND 3.d4 variations along with the stonewall straight jacket, all I did for YEARS was tactics train and improve on what I understand and what makes chess worth playing.
it might be related to my name and number dyslexia. if not that, my muted emotions mastermind personality type. everyone has limitations. outside of chess... the rest of you are blithering idiots to us masterminds filtering EVERYTHING through an irrational emotional filter that PREVENTS problems from getting solved.
chess is mental exercise, especially now that I'm getting old and already have brain damage.
It never ceases to amaze me how you can explain a situation to someone and it goes in one ear and out the other. i'm positionally challenged in the extreme beyond intuition and experience. wish it wasn't like that, but it is what it is. I make up for it with tactics and aggression.
I also play to get games over BEFORE the "end game" where my chances go down and down and down the closer it gets to a pawn ending, and throw games that are cluttered with pawns. it doesn't matter how many times I explain tis SIMPLE CONCEPT, people will STILL keep arguing for me to abandon the tools THAT WORK and adopt ones that DON'T to "improve my ratings".
I know my limitations and strengths.
I PUNISHED a 1750 hard in at least 1 if not 2 games as a 1450-1500 who argued that my "tactical abilities aren't enough to win games with". the one game I remember, he let me push BOTH of my center pawns all the way down the board (seems POSITIONALLY STUPID to me) and then I just overloaded his rooks until I traded everything down and got a winning queen out of it.
I won it "positionally", but I look at position as "what pieces can DO". everyone should know how to rook check a back rank to promote a pawn, whether it's with mystical "controlling squares blah blah blah" positional concepts or simpler "this is how you solve THIS problem" experience.
BTW... thanks ALL YOU TROLLS who attack me because of my cognitive limitations because you're insecure. i'm brutally honest and not ashamed of my CHESS limitations. i'm SOOOO much better at poker, and can't believe how STUPID most players are who can't spot "river rat math" where EVERYONE has to lose.
i got a round 2 ticket in a 9000 player freeroll and was in 17th when I decided to go for it it after I passed the 85th spot needed for the ticket and got knocked out at 57th longballing for the honor of 1st.
round 2... 200 of the alleged "best" players, I drew AA with an AJJ flop... full house aces over jacks on the FINAL TABLE. an opponent goes all in. I have to call. I knew he didn't have me, but I ALSO KNEW he was going to pull a 1:52 on the river and sure enough, I got my camera and took a pic of the hand. I shouldn't be able to see that coming, but when you're ALWAYS getting KOed with 75% winning hands...
at the START of poker stars, when the math was legit, it was a piece of cake to make 3rd or better every other game. I'm a poker grandmaster. but then again... it's EASY... 52 cards... easy to calculate variables, and most players are overly optimistic. I'd argue that many have been PROGRAMMED to be bad chasing rags because it works with busted math. you can't grind grindproof river rat math.
just like the positional frustration that made me drop chess a decade ago, I don't play poker online anymore because the math cheats and rewards idiots for putting money on the table when they shouldn't. i don't play cash games EVER except in a casino. I spotted mark cards at a bar in oregon. I have EXCELLENT spatial and pattern abilities if not math and abstraction. math is a lot easier to learn than it is to understand position. I've never used all that algebra I've forgotten.
I wish I was that good at chess. it's all good. I have other skills.
I don't want to play the scandinavian anymore myself. I want to rousseu & jaensish/schliemann if only I could figure out a way to conquer the move order nightmare I was unable to drill my way through much at all in 2 hours of constant wrong moves
this means you don't understand the opening, only memorise. If you know the ideas and the purpose of every move, you are able to figure out all the theory moves by yourself in a game