I was wondering about this a little recently. In some interviews from the Candidates Tournament, a couple of players had said they'd forgotten the lines they'd prepared, and so subsequently messed up. How talented are they if they're relying on memory to this extent? Obviously a lot, but it's an interesting thing for them to have said.
Is Chess No Longer a Thinking Game?
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Of course chess is and remains a thinking game. The chess clock was invented because some players thought for hours before moving. All the bullet is no real chess.
Top players prepare an amazing amount of variations. It is hard to remember these especially if there is a substantial time gap between the preparation and the actual game where the prepared position arises on the board.
Nimzovich, Reshevsky, Spassky are all known to have forgotten moves.
May 13, 2021
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#4
Chess can be a thinking game and Internet chess is fun. But in general, are chess players taking less time to think, less time to think deeply, less time to think creatively, per move and per game?
Musikamole wrote:
In my previous topic, I expressed my new found joy in bullet chess. If someone said I would be playing bullet one day, I would say they were nuts.
Playing chess back in the 60’s, yep, a child of that special decade, it was well understood that chess was a thinking game. The king of thinking games. It required considerable thought.
It was not a game to be rushed. A quiet game to pass the time, slowly. My 6th grade teacher and I would play chess. We would think.
Is the human mind evolving into something it was not before? Has technology changed the way we think? The depth at which we think? Do we even feel the need to think that much anymore? Google has all the answers, I think.
Do I dare attempt hyperbullet? Where does this all end?
P.S. Students, at least in the U.S., have little time to think deeply, increasingly pressured to score higher on standardized tests. Teachers pushed to teach to the test.
bullet isnt real chess ,its not classical but its commen so its not a varient
May 13, 2021
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#8
How do Online bullet players fare in OTB bullet game? Must be fun to watch. 5 minutes OTB Blitz is already fast.
May 13, 2021
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#9
Viznik wrote:
People who play fast aren’t not thinking, they’re just thinking faster than you. Just because someone’s brain functions faster than yours doesn’t mean it’s not working
A quick mind is a beautiful thing to see in action. GM Daniel Naroditsky has one. And yet he showed a position against GM Robert Hess on his Twitch channel. It was an Internet tournament, classical time control. With his quick mind, he spent 20 minutes on that move, explaining his thought process. Extremely deep calculation, imagination, creativity, the entire brain fully engaged, fully exercised.
GM’s and other titled and non-titled classical tournament players have done some serious thinking. We have a few at the club. I’m not a classical tournament player. I’ve played in a few USCF rapid tournaments. The classical tournament club members tell me stories. Some stories with great pain, spending several hours on a game, only to lose focus on one move and blunder. Tournament players are in the minority. The vast majority of chess players never play in classical tournaments. I, for one, can testify that I have never thought as hard or deep playing chess as my club friends. This style of play can be brutal and unforgiving.
May 13, 2021
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#10
GBTGBA wrote:
I like chess but not too super crazy about it. I don’t dream about chess like others or think about chess before sleeping. It’s just a nice fun hobby for me. So I don’t want to think too much in chess or it will be stressful. I’m glad the OP found joy in bullet. I would be calling others nuts if they tell me to play hyperbullet! I didn’t even play bullet! But look at me now, it’s almost the only thing I play! Why not give it a try. You never know what joy it can be until you tried. But I do want to start thinking some more again. I’m not getting better in hyperbullet just premoving. Hence my planned retirement in hyperbullet.
Honestly hyperbullet uses bullet skills and a ton of premoving... I've lost to people like 300 points below me because I missed a set of premoves or something like that. That's why I only play bullet, not hyperbullet anymore... except against friends 
May 13, 2021
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#11
Viznik wrote:
You’ve been playing since the 60s and can’t even break 1000? Yikes
Gee thanks. 😀 I never set out to be a top player on this site. It’s a hobby. However, since you brought it up, I broke 1000 in all categories a few years back. Health caused a set back. My blitz was 1050, rapid 1250. My current rapid is 1061, which means I did break 1000 again, even though it’s still not my life goal, or something on my bucket list. My daily is 1444, a format where I get to enjoy thinking more.
May 13, 2021
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#12
play4fun64 wrote:
How do Online bullet players fare in OTB bullet game? Must be fun to watch. 5 minutes OTB Blitz is already fast.
You can find OTB bullet matches on YouTube. It’s crazy!
May 13, 2021
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#13
GBTGBA wrote:
@ninjaswat after I improve my blitz and rapid I will try bullet. I dare not play bullet now for fear it will sink more than 300 points ! Then the site will automatically label me as sandbagger and block me from playing in either hyperbullet or bullet tournaments 😱
Ah generally I just do bullet to pass the time and work out emotions 
So yeah, I gain more points than I lose. Actually, all of my ratings have gone up this month
Musikamole wrote:
In my previous topic, I expressed my new found joy in bullet chess. If someone said I would be playing bullet one day, I would say they were nuts.
Playing chess back in the 60’s, yep, a child of that special decade, it was well understood that chess was a thinking game. The king of thinking games. It required considerable thought.
It was not a game to be rushed. A quiet game to pass the time, slowly. My 6th grade teacher and I would play chess. We would think.
Is the human mind evolving into something it was not before? Has technology changed the way we think? The depth at which we think? Do we even feel the need to think that much anymore? Google has all the answers, I think.
Do I dare attempt hyperbullet? Where does this all end?
P.S. Students, at least in the U.S., have little time to think deeply, increasingly pressured to score higher on standardized tests. Teachers pushed to teach to the test.
I'd say it is a thinking game generally speaking, but at the higher levels, it slowly is becoming memorization (for the opening phase at least). I've seen GMs play ridiculous moves that nobody would obviously play without checking with the engine first. And most Ruy Lopez games do not show complex thinking, but rather pattern recognition and memorization that spans several moves.
May 13, 2021
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#15
WALKINGLOSS wrote:
Musikamole wrote:
In my previous topic, I expressed my new found joy in bullet chess. If someone said I would be playing bullet one day, I would say they were nuts.
Playing chess back in the 60’s, yep, a child of that special decade, it was well understood that chess was a thinking game. The king of thinking games. It required considerable thought.
It was not a game to be rushed. A quiet game to pass the time, slowly. My 6th grade teacher and I would play chess. We would think.
Is the human mind evolving into something it was not before? Has technology changed the way we think? The depth at which we think? Do we even feel the need to think that much anymore? Google has all the answers, I think.
Do I dare attempt hyperbullet? Where does this all end?
P.S. Students, at least in the U.S., have little time to think deeply, increasingly pressured to score higher on standardized tests. Teachers pushed to teach to the test.
I'd say it is a thinking game generally speaking, but at the higher levels, it slowly is becoming memorization (for the opening phase at least). I've seen GMs play ridiculous moves that nobody would obviously play without checking with the engine first. And most Ruy Lopez games do not show complex thinking, but rather pattern recognition and memorization that spans several moves.
That's because they play a lot of theory, but I don't use those lines... other than accidentally.
May 13, 2021
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#16
thebigbangz wrote:
Bro chess is not deep they learn like everything else
There are more possible chess games than there are atoms in the universe. I remember reading that somewhere...
Games of chess are mathematical problems. And much like every math problems, you can either solve it with formulas or remember all the answers. In this way, are mathematicians thinking less or more in mordent time compare with ancient times
May 13, 2021
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#18
Chess is a thinking game if you Calculate at least 5 ply deep. Many players rely on intuition and pattern recognition. The Bxh7 sacrifice for example. Many do it without second thought as he have viewed dozens of such sacrifice.
May 13, 2021
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#19
play4fun64 wrote:
Chess is a thinking game if you Calculate at least 5 ply deep. Many players rely on intuition and pattern recognition. The Bxh7 sacrifice for example. Many do it without second thought as he have viewed dozens of such sacrifice.
he or she I remember @Gothamchess covering Judit Polgar's best came included something like that, right?
May 13, 2021
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#20
play4fun64 wrote:
Chess is a thinking game if you Calculate at least 5 ply deep. Many players rely on intuition and pattern recognition. The Bxh7 sacrifice for example. Many do it without second thought as he have viewed dozens of such sacrifice.
Excellent post. Thank you.
Respectfully, and I could be way wrong, is calculating 5 ply deep...well...is it thinking? I’d say it’s a mental skill. I’ve seen our club NM rattle off long variations during our thinking/calculation sessions without any thought, seeing the end of any line as well as someone physically moving the pieces and taking a picture. Five ply calculation, a wonderful skill, enables the chess player to clearly see a future position and who it favors. The deeper and faster the calculation, the more time available to think and evaluate.
Our club NM would lead us through these long visualization/calculation exercises. We were presented a chess position, then asked to come up with plans (the thinking part). This thinking part required all manner of cognitive activity - imagination, intuition, creativity, dream positions. Deep thinking stuff. The kind of thinking he would do in tournament practice. We would spend anywhere from 20 minutes to one hour a position - ouch - really running down that tournament clock, and getting through just a few positions per session. My brain would hurt. I don’t ever remember thinking that hard.
When the ideas/plans were done being thrown around in the group, we were instructed to first determine candidate moves, then calculate continuations, along with all the alternate variations, I.e., “what if Black does this instead of that”? Alternate variations gave me a headache, but were necessary, since he would often say that chess is not checkers, and that your opponent can always surprise you.
I see calculation, visualization, tactical pattern recognition and endgame technique as some of the wonderful things in a chess players tool box. The more the better, freeing up more time to think. This tool box full of chess stuff pretty much sums up a players strength, like going to a gym and building muscle. In this case, chess muscle. So when we play 5 0 and 10 0 at the club, it’s that chess muscle that mostly decides games. It will be fun when our club reopens to ask my playing partners, “what were you thinking when you made that move?” 😄
———
Puzzle Rush Survivor
Regarding puzzle rush survivor, I recently set a personal best sore of 35. I missed the last puzzle rated over 2000. Hard stuff. Was any of this activity thinking, the way I am describing thinking? In the beginning, with my current store of patterns, no. As it progressed, calculation was required. Still no real thinking. Towards the end, with all patterns exhausted from my memory bank and calculation failing me at the start, I found myself stepping back, taking a breath, and digging deep, listening to my intuition, tapping into my imagination. What is this position asking of me? Okay, those who blitz through 2000 rated puzzles are probably laughing. But what is your brain doing when you hit your wall? Probably thinking your butt off! 😁
In my previous topic, I expressed my new found joy in bullet chess. If someone said I would be playing bullet one day, I would say they were nuts.
Playing chess back in the 60’s, yep, a child of that special decade, it was well understood that chess was a thinking game. The king of thinking games. It required considerable thought.
It was not a game to be rushed. A quiet game to pass the time, slowly. My 6th grade teacher and I would play chess. We would think.
Is the human mind evolving into something it was not before? Has technology changed the way we think? The depth at which we think? Do we even feel the need to think that much anymore? Google has all the answers, I think.
Do I dare attempt hyperbullet? Where does this all end?
P.S. Students, at least in the U.S., have little time to think deeply, increasingly pressured to score higher on standardized tests. Teachers pushed to teach to the test.