I’ve known how to play chess for a while, in the sense of just casually playing for fun, but would like to get a bit more serious about it. I’m doing a bit of the standard advice given (working on endgames, analyzing my games, puzzles of various sorts, etc), but am particularly interested in taking a memorization-heavy approach, especially after seeing all the whining on chess forums lately (and even from some grandmasters) about chess having become “just” a game of memorization. Fine; I’ve been practicing the art of memory diligently for quite some time, I enjoy it (which is my main reason for playing ; I have no illusions of rank, rating, or making a career of chess) whereas I don’t especially enjoy tactics exercises etc. So if I’m going to memorize with the goal of getting better at chess, what should I memorize? Opening lines and variations seems to be the thing in tournaments, are there any particular ones that particularly reward the person who likes to memorize and is skilled at it? Other areas of chess study to memorize besides openings?
I would suggest following Lasker’s advice about what to memorise:
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Memorise Stientiz Theory. So that instead of constantly looking up what it is and what it recommends in any position, you can just pick it out of your brain. All good chessplayers learn this - even if they do not call it by that name.
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Develop and Memorise a method of evaluation of a position. Material, King Safety, Pawn Structure etc… many of these around and indeed whole books on evaluation protocols.
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Standard known endgames. These do REALLY HAVE TO BE MEMORISED e.g. Which Rook and pawn endgames are won, or drawn. Some surprising ones here like K+R+ f and h pawns is theoretically a draw - even though the stronger side is two pawns up.
Not my place to advise on chess memorisation so these are recommendations ONLY based on what helped me - funnily enough I have never really used memory techniques for chess, and I am a club and tournament player.
Good Luck