I never was successful in the startup area. But as far as I learned about chess, go, poker and other strategy games, the idea of the great player always are is,

I never was successful in the startup area. But as far as I learned about chess, go, poker and other strategy games, the idea of the great player always are is, that they can think ahead of the pattern. And if they have a pattern it can't be described or understood (if you think of zen or kungfu it definitely takes more time for the student to really understand the real concepts in a way that he can use them in practice). So I wonder, is it really worth to look for a pattern, when there probably is none?