3 ms·

I think at casual levels chess is mostly about carefully parrying, till the opponent makes a mistake, perhaps alertness is more important than memorising patter

I think at casual levels chess is mostly about carefully parrying, till the opponent makes a mistake, perhaps alertness is more important than memorising patterns at that level.. There is also the The Theory of Steinitz, that says that one can only win in chess as a result of opponent's mistakes.

newen 6y ago
You recognize mistakes by memorizing patterns. There is no level in chess where you don’t memorize patterns. Maybe in the lower levels the patterns are simple enough that you don’t consider them patterns, but forks, skewers, etc. are still patterns.