How do you "see" patterns?

Hi everyone!

A couple of days ago I was playing against the Sven bot, and for the first time "saw" and played a pattern that got me to win his queen. I'm still not sure how this sequence clicked in (I'm a beginner at chess, and not a very industrious one), so I wondered:

How do patterns 'arise' (you see them in your mind, see/hear the notation, close your eyes and analyse the position, etc.) when other people (you guys) recoginize them?

This is what I played (27.g3... onwards):

It is a fairly simple pattern, I guess. In hindsight, I'm not really sure giving up my bishop and knight for his queen gave me (any) compensation in this position.  You'll also notice some embarrassing moves throught the whole game.  Still, it was a fun one. 

I know there must be a myriad of answers to such an awkward question...but that IS what's interesting -- at least IMO.

Cheers and stay safe, everyone!

How does a pattern arise in the mind... I don't know lol.

I think most people pick out a few key features of something. Like if I say two wheels and handle bars, you might think of a bike.

For chess patterns like pins and skewers, I think the characteristic feature is whenever two important pieces are on the same line.

For me the clue is usually geometrical.

4. Qe2 h5.... made me realize I never consider pushing rook pawn that early in similar situation to stop the future pawn development of my opponent. When

Oh dear god. How do I delete that last message? It's all wrong 😖

In the upper right of your post there's an x (you may have to move your mouse over it to see it). Click it to delete.

Its usually a subconscious thing you have to repeatedly do skewer puzzles or regularly play a position where you intuitively know what to do. Its all repetition repetition legitimizes.

I make them up.

You just scan the checks, captures, attacks and you find them

Not an answer to the question...but that's some really nice advice. Thank you, sir, I'll make sure to honor it.

Pattern recognition is a form of fast sub-cognitive thinking. You see a particular arrangement of pieces and patterns pop into awareness without conscious effort. This is greatly assisted by slow conscious thinking, calculating, remembering to apply rules (eg: if two pieces are lined up on a diagonal, look for a pin or skewer) etc. The two modes of thinking work together. So how do you burn patterns into your brain so you start to see them automatically? Drills. Lots of them. Standard advice is to solve thematically organised sets of simple tactical patterns over and over, until you no longer need to think about the solution. You just see the solution. Spaced repetition on Chessable is a great technology for this, and they have a number of tactics courses that work for this (both free and paid). 

Here on Chess.com, I find that Puzzle Rush is great for practicing pattern recognition as there isn't enough time to calculate deeply. But I find the tactical motifs too limited compared to something like Bain's Tactics for Students. In Puzzle Rush, the first 10 puzzles are nearly always some sort of weak back rank, so you get less exposure to other patterns like pins and forks.

Usually they are tactical patterns.

So I always do a quick sweep (usually without me realizing it!) Of tactics, especially discovered checks/attacks, and pins. I'm not good with skewers or queen forks for some reason.

For me, seeing a pattern just happens: I see something on the board and my mind says, "Hey, this looks like something you've studied!" Then I calculate out to make sure.