I need a strategy for the mental part of the game

I visualize each move, using internal self-talk, such as, "If I move this here then he can take... and if he takes... then I can.... but then that will have me retreating. After three or four of these mental moves, I forget what pieces were moved that might create new vulnerabilities. So I struggle to lay traps with sacrifices. I'm wondering what others do. Do they have better memories, better ability to hold a mental picture of the game?

Thanks for taking time to share your experience. I am grateful to you.

I play flamenco guitar also, and learned long ago that practice takes you only so far; since one inevitably falls into the trap of practicing bad habits: so learning from those who came before you is imperative for cultivation.

So, if I understand correctly, advanced players have memorized a lot of patterns and, in large part, play them accordingly. Metaphorically, that's like playing with words instead of individual letters. Makes sense. I was hoping there exists a step-method to developing memory and visualization of moves in chess. Sigh!

Exactly correct. Strong players get a large part of their strength from breaking the position down into "chunks" and mentally manipulating those "chunks" rather than always looking at individual moves and threats.

As an illustration of this, psychologists have run experiments involving chess positions and chess players of various strengths, and they have found that when the position has no internal logic... with the pieces just dumped onto the board in random positions... strong players are literally no better than beginners at memorizing the position and re-creating it. Only when the pieces on the board are arranged in meaningful patterns (ie: in "chunks" of information) do the strong players demonstrate their superior ability.

I'm beginning to get a sense that one can improve at chess, utilizing the available resources; but ultimately, genetics set the limitation. As a psychophysiologist, I am aware that the left hemisphere of the brain (linear) is where logic, mathematics and analyses are processed, while the right hemisphere (abstract) is where art, music and insight are located. So collaboration between the two is essential for such tasks as playing chess at an expert level. This operation suggests then that left-handed people are better equipped neurologically for solving chess puzzles, and right-handed people are better suited for utilizing knowledge already stored in remote memory. Anybody know of a survey among chess masters that identifies left-handedness as an advantage?

I suppose genetics play some part in how well one is capable to learn new information and being able to use it in practice. Thus generally it should apply on the pace of learning and improvement, and in some ways affect on the ceiling of ones abilities. However, it's obvious that anyone at any age can pick up the game and get relatively good at it with enough practice. The younger you start the higher you can get, pretty much. In the end the amount and quality of practice highly outweighs any other factor in determining ones playing strength. 

The experiments @bleuemu refers to have been run in many fields such as weather forecasting, medicine, etc. They often find that experts perform well when analysing information that encodes patterns that experts can map onto their mental models - experience in other words. Give them random information (chess position, weather data, symptoms) and they perform no better than non-experts in their profession.

This thing will get better with constant efforts. Try to memorize the position and play out variations in head, If you feel difficult to visualize after 2-3 moves then look at board again and then visualize from there. ( Possible in Correspondence chess )

Thanks to all for kindly sharing their perspectives. I realize now that I was looking for a shortcut to a higher ranking.

Cheers!