And yet, game 2 of the world championship there was a novelty on move 4.

The only real option if you want interesting games is to make intentionally bad moves so that theory falls apart, and that's only an option against weaker players.

Did you watch the world championship this year? It did not at all fit your narrative. The games were very exciting. The players were out of prep early and often. There were a lot of chances being taken, blunders, and mistakes. All this from 2800-level players.

I think people may soon realize that computers can be used for more than just preparing deep lines on well-trodden ground. They can also be used to find the shortest path off the beaten track and into a jungle of a midgame where you and your opponent can just play some chess. I love it!

OK, so fucking up accidentally can also make for an interesting game, but that hardly shatters my "narrative".

Also, a lot of those engine lines would’ve just made a draw, something a human player would never do when they’re playing with the white pieces in a need-to-win game.

Until you become extremely proficient, you have basically no room to use novel strategies. You will lose to people with better execution on established strategies. And so you don’t do anything but grind execution and it’s pretty boring.

Chess isn’t quite this bad, but I find it pretty boring after a while.

I would argue that you can get to approaching 1500 ELO without really knowing any theory at all, and just focusing on what "feels" like appropriate control of the board & game dynamics... and again, the vast majority of casual players will likely never move beyond that. But it's still fun, especially when they're able to challenge friends between classes to 3 or 5 minute matches.

That may not hold if it’s an established form of social competition where you can earn prestige by being good at it within your local peer group. It would be nice to see more intellectual challenges take that role among young people.

Memorisation is not at all important for learning to play chess. It won't make you better at the game. Training your pattern recognition, your positional/endgame/opening understanding will.

Until you're around 1500 real life ELO(which takes years for most people), all you have to do is play the game and enjoy it, analyse it with the opponent or other friends from the club. No memorisation required.

A lot of times, Memorization isn't even needed. People develop mental shortcuts for calculation in positional, endgame, and middle game sections.

Things like forcing doubled pawns on the C/F files (depending on your color), calculating whether you can promote before the king can catch up (that triangle strategy). Lucena and a few others.

With a solid opening repertoire that's chosen to force certain openings/sublines you can limit the study needed significantly (and shoot to the moon rating wise).

Point is memorisation is pointless. The way to study an opening is to understand the ideas, possible endgames, tactical and various structures that can arise.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_chess

I almost never play chess, but when I play chess I usually play this variant, because it's faster and people don't have any tactics memorised. I'm not even sure if it's possible to memorise in the same manner as regular chess.

Your moves are all about controlling your opponents influence and responses while developing your pieces before situating for a breakthrough or attack.

Interesting games only really happen with decently skilled opponents who know the theory as well as you. The game often only starts getting interesting after move 16+.

Dubious moves and openings are a surefire way to lose.