Is chess a memory game or an inteligence game

Most of the time, you base the decision-making process based on patterns you know or played before, learning from mistakes you did previously. However, for new patterns/positions you do not know, is it more about thinking or depth searching the next logical positions.

You have to know many chunks. The more, the better.

I don’t understand the question.

@BinaryBishop
Both

well, Carlsen himself says it is about "pattern recognition", The more games you play, the more patterns you remember. which is a visual memory thing I would say.

Intelligence? I guess. Here's an interesting document from The National Library of Medicine titled "A Study on the Correlation between Intelligence and Body Schema in Children Who Practice Chess at School"

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9028252/

Abstract

The role of intelligence in chess is crucial because the game involves a situation of adversity between two players whose goal is to checkmate the opponent’s king. Due to the complex nature of the game and the huge amount of information needed to become a professional chess player, the ability to receive, analyze, sort and use abstract notions is essential. A total of 67 children from the third grade were selected and tested twice, initially and finally, to establish the level of body schema and intelligence. The Raven test was used to numerically quantify their intelligence and the Goodenough test was conducted for the body schema. We used the paired samples T-test to highlight the statistical difference between the results and performed a simple linear regression to see if the level of intelligence is a predictor of the body schema. There is a linear relationship between intelligence and body schema, and we can use the first one to predict the evolution of the second. In conclusion, body schema can be educated through chess lessons, and this will lead to better psychomotor development.

chess is a sport. there is strategy and tactics (Pep Guardiola style), you have to do wacky things and above all have the intuition of a psychoanalyst

#4 Yeah, why listen to GMs when you can listen to a bunch of anonymous guys in lab coats?

Chess players need to recognize chess patterns. It's done by being exposed to them. Studying motifs, solving puzzles, and surrounding ourselves with "positive" contents helps. Chess positions can be solved by a combination of experiences like: Pattern recognition, Logical thinking, Chess engines, Intelligence and Memory. Chess problems are easier to solve when we have been exposed to them before hand. We gain speed by exposures to familiar patterns.

Expose your self to something new: lichess.org/video
One step at a time ... lichess.org/video?tags=solving

If you must experience it all first hand, then motivate your self to do them all.
Step 1) lichess.org/learn#/
Step 2) lichess.org/practice/
Step 3) lichess.org/training/themes
Step 4) lichess.org/training/openings
Step 5) Watch and learn from their mistakes ... lichess.org/tv/

It's obviously impossible to memorize everything, so chess cannot be a memory game. Being familiar with something makes a big difference and that takes intelligence. Rely on your knowledge, that you have understood, to make logical choices. Take the time to enjoy chess, it was never intended to be a race. Understanding chess is crucial to playing it effectively. Without logic, the game cannot be played. Players need to reason logically, the consequences of a move. It takes memory and intelligence to play it. Creativity in chess involves lateral thinking with knowledge, rather than analytic depth searching. Thinking and depth search are two ways to approach a chess problem. Engines use more depth than humans. Humans us more lateral thinking then engines. Cyborgs may end up using both methods. @BinaryBishop

I would not say it was an intelligence game. Although Carlsen and Kasparov and Bobby Fischer
are listed as being high IQ no one else is, I know several very high IQ people who are only average at chess. Memory & pattern recognition are identical I believe, the problems of a chess game are finite and the calculus is limited. All blunders and loss of exchange are solved with better memory, time limits are memory. Time limits are the controlling factor because the majority of the power of intelligence is using time, in a unlimited time game intelligence is very important once the common patterns are know. In a match; intelligence is also better because you now know the opponent.

@BinaryBishop said in #1:
> ... is it more about thinking or depth searching the next logical positions.
"... If it is possible to decide on your move on purely positional considerations then you should do so; it is quicker and more reliable [than tactical analysis]. There are, of course, many positions in which concrete analysis is essential. but even in these cases you should not analyse specific variations more than necessary. The following example is a marginal case. ... [After 1 e4 e5 2 Nf3 Nc6 3 Bc4 Nf6 4 d3 Bc5 5 O-O d6 6 c3 O-O 7 Nbd2 a6 8 Bb3 Ba7 9 h3 Nd7 10 Bc2 f5 11 exf5 Rxf5 12 d4 Rf8 13 Ne4 exd4,] the wide range of moves at White's disposal indicates that a complete analysis will be very time-consuming. In the end I decided on a straight-forward forcing continuation which gives White a slight positional advantage. In fact White could have secured a larger advantage by another line, ..." - GM John Nunn (1998)
www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1104043
"... However obviously the majority of chess players may be divided into two big classes of combination and positional players, in the chess master this antagonism is transformed into a harmony. ..." - Emanuel Lasker (~1925)
static1.squarespace.com/static/5856bd64ff7c50433c3803db/t/5a0dcda2ec212de097e22482/1510854051856/lasker%27s_manual_excerpt.pdf

I think many can make it to 2200 + with a lot of work and memory focusing on limited openings and their middle/end games. Assuming you can afford traveling to all the tournaments for 6 + years. I mean..... Botez.

But the 2600 + OTB GMs are just cyborgs.