I also hated memorizing openings. I did it, years ago when I was a middling level chess player and played in tourneys, like everyone else, because of the time pressure from the chess clock. Nobody could afford being stumped 4-6 moves in, pondering what to do, when you had a better chance arriving to the mid-game with a non-terrible position. Burning too much time here meant you'd lose on time.

I was not good enough to play an unknown variant and come out better, as you were!

So over time I drifted to variants like bughouse or speed chess variants, to play for fun and not feel like it was studying or being constrained by the standard moves.

And then boardgames took over; for me personally I need to have a mix of luck and skill in a game to enjoy it.

Fischer proposed a variant of chess, which somewhat randomized the position of power pieces for each game, as a solution to this problem.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fischer_random_chess

I've also moved on to board games that have some element of randomness as otherwise I try optimizing to the point where it ceases to be fun and becomes work. Overall I've found myself way too competitive, especially around younger family members, and these days I instead play the role of GM while letting them play. Most board games don't have a role for GM, but with a little creativity it is easy to modify the game so that players focus more on the fun of playing their own roles while I 'run' the game. It also allows for the interjecting of a story into the mechanics that I have found younger players to greatly enjoy.

This is a really silly question, but if you don't memorize openings how do you make sure you're avoiding the standard ones? Not a chess player.

Not a chess player either, but I'd imagine it would be easier to know the begginings of a standard opening, then just play a wrong move. At that point it ia unlikely to transpose back into a standard opening.

I do this trick a fair amount in Go, and actually have accumulated some "standard" non-standard openings that I play when the oppurtunity arrises. Because I play them fairly often, I actually have more experience with them then my opponent, so end up with the "memorization" advantage.

Also, in my experience, players will notice the mistake and then try a bit too hard to take advantage, instead of being satisfied with getting the "normal" result.

I asked a few people much better than me and they couldn't think of any standard openings similar to what I was using. A few were able to point out some openings it was similar to, but those were rarely used openings.

I'm such a bad chess player I barely count as an amateur, but it's definitely possible to know simple jerkass bidding systems in bridge and just enough about some of the "standard" systems to screw with people and often win, without being capable of playing any of the standard systems.

Nb however that most tournaments and such ban loads of bidding strategies with all kinds of special rules, so you can't do this just anywhere.

It would be hilarious but rather unlikely that OP has been playing some obscure opening variations without intention all this time.

I have similar feelings about memorising in chess. It gets to the point where it's boring for me

Late in life chess learner here.

I broke through a plateau by studying openings more than memorizing them. Slowly working through the early possibilities to separate what works from what doesn't helped to reinforce basic principles.

So like hammering away at 30+ identical problems in high school math class, with some tedium it really did help me internalize the principles. I did not continue to memorize openings and common lines to any great depth. I remain a meager, but much more contented, chess student.

An alternative approach is to work through endgame problems. Learning the key different endgames helps you direct the middlegame towards positions you know you can win. There's also something about learning to handle small numbers of pieces well which translates really well to the rest of the game.