memorizing moves?

After reading through one chess book and a few articles here I've only been able to memorize a few strateges. I'm overwelmed by the number of combos that can be made, how can you memorize all of them. After looking through the forum I see that all of you have a lot of moves/stategies memorize.

 I'm stuck with 3 basic plays that probably can't help me that much.

How do you guys do it? How do you memorize them, and equally important how do you keep them memorized?s

I have read also many books but honestly i have no memorize complete detail of every move, i use some standard opening from the book but only after five to 10 moves, i rely on my own analysis, specially when i notice to my opponents he or she was great in book line, i've always make a move to destruct the bookline, i want a game analyzation than memorization.

I should be memorizing more moves, but I only have some of my openings to 3-5 moves.  You are right, there are just too many possibilities.  You can always stick to the basic opening principles and you should be fine either way.

For those of us who are not gifted in memorization and retention, we can memorize just a handful of opening variations and from there we are guided by our understanding of the general principles of opening play. Of course, when memorizing the main lines, you've got deviations to deal with. What do you do with them? Memorize or " common sensensicalize " ( my term). It's a bag or tricks or a bag of worms, depends of your philosophical slant. Choose an opening repertoire against e4 and d4 as black and memorize a few lines. There's really no way around it. You have to know several standard lines, and understand the general principle ( fight for which squares, which pieces become problematic like the c8 bishop in the French and the QGD, what are the freeing moves, etc. ). As for retention, I replay the moves over the board several times after I have studied them, learning by rote. Over and Again. I replay the whole sequence after some time have passed, like first thing in the morning. So, it is a combination of learning by understanding and then by rote.

the importance of memorization in chess comes less from memorizing SEQUENCES of moves, and more from fuzzy pattern recognition - being able to get the "feel" of a position that you have seen or played before. this is what sharpens your tactical vision - the ability to recognize when you should start looking at the known tactical themes stored in your memory. memorizing openings is much less important, and frankly, unless you are a professional, there are just too many lines to memorize. a better choice in my opinion is to pick an opening system and become familiar with the positions and themes that arise from that kind of position. i personally do that and have developed my openings around this thesis. i play the closed sicilian, the glek, the king's indian, and the pirc. they all play into similar types of games - ones where the middlegame positions are familiar to me and i can recognize tactical opportunities.

of course none of this helps the fact that i still commonly fall for simple tactics because i never spend more than 10 seconds looking on any move :) 

and I patently refuse to play any opening called the glek

i go on instincts along with a few basic opening moves. but it has to be more of a science than anything else.

Interesting post. Right now I just try to apply the principles of opening theory and avoid studying opening lines. Maybe the next step would be to study the most common openings and the ideas behind them. That will give me the chance to try them and decide which one I like more and then start studying it more deeply.

I think it's also important to develop those "pattern recognition" skills before studying chess openings. Tactical vision is fundamental! 

don't listen to these clowns. they only want to humiliate you...they've each actually memorized the main lines and corresponding defenses and variations of the ruy lopez, giuoco piano, king's gambit, four knights game, the reti, the spanish, the scotch, queen's gambit, queen's pawn, ponziani, bird's, tayler, van geet, barcza.....even the grob and dozens more openings--all through about fourteen or fifteen moves.

i suggest you start memorizing now.

Shhhh don't tell him!

Erik hit the nail on the head. Pattern recognition is the secret, and creating an opening repertoire that have similar patterns makes playing an opening and middle-game easier.

 

Your true goal should be to understand your opening, and middle game objectives from the openings you choose to play. This way, if you enter a line that you haven't studied, or recall, you will be able to find the correct move based on that openings principles. 

batgirl what is the glek??

It's an opening named after Grandmaster Igor V. Glek (Elo rating: 2540) of Germany.  In the Four Knights, 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.g3 is known as the Glek variation.  In the Classical King's Indian Defense, 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 Bg7 4.e4 d6 5.Nf3 O-O 6.Be2 Na6 is known as the Glek variation. 

batgirl! i'm shocked!! you were the last person i would think would judge an opening by it's name... ;)

  To be honest, memorize specific openings such as Scotch, Four Knights, Sicilian, Nimzo or Kings, English and some other famous ones but also try to calculate in the game and form a strategy otherwise your going to go into a hard game!!

Very little time should be spent on memorizing openings [perhaps enough to get you to a playable middlegame where there are viable plans for both sides], I learned that the hard way. Spent lots of time with the bottomless sicilian, Ruy Lopez, and Nimzo-Indian defense. And about 80-90% of that opening theory never sees the light of day: my opponent would rather have an inferior, but playable game. So are openings important? Look at Capablanca, who claimed to not even open a single book on the opening. Look at his results. Yes, he's a genious, but he excelled in endgames, which meant that he understood the most fundamental aspects of chess. 

So honestly, which would you rather do? : spend 50+ hours analyzing a single variation in the open sicilian maze OR study basic rook endgame positions (there are all types of tomes available), along with tactical motifs, and some basic strategical positions. To top this all off MEMORIZING will actually pay off when you start memorizing MASTER games; with each move deeply analyzed beforehand. All this will payoff into your game OVERALL and increase your rating rather than some opening line that has little or no chance of occuring since most players (non-professional) try to be original in the opening anyways.

I studied Psychology in College back in Romania and one of the most important things in our life, generaly speaking, is our ability to memorize. I am simply fascinated by memorization and I truly believe that memory is a crucial factor in our lives. Nowadays people tend to give memory a smaller credit but I don't think this is right, memory is vital at any point.

In chess, I believe we have to use the basic principles of memory, not just to use mechanical memory to `learn` opening moves. We have to use memory to remember opening principles, middlegame techniques, endgame algorithms if possible (in the endgame, memory serves us well if we consider all those important details that exist there). Having all those principles in our memory, we can simply move them into present and use them to guide our moves. And then, opening moves will just come by themselves.

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