"Chess is a game of understanding and not of memory."

--- Znosko-Borovsky

You could have heard the same thought expressed (explicitly or implicitly) by the likes of Morphy, Steinitz, Lasker, Capablanca, Alekhine, Rubinstein, Botvinnik, Smyslov, Tal, Fischer etc.

Incidentally, they were all endowed with a brilliant capacity to memorize. I would assume they knew the relative importance of the two closely related elements.>

My memory is very good (though certainly not to be compared to Morphy's or Pillsbury's, say), and I am a poor chessplayer. So no one knows better than I do that memory is not enough. But I still think a first-rate memory is necessary, though not sufficient, for chess mastery.

<Komapsimnita: <brankat> Out of the names listed in your above post, do you know how many were multi/bi-lingual? I've read bits about famous chess players, and I am amazed at how many of them could speak multiple lanuages. I read chancho's link, and it claimed Alekhine could speak 10 lanuages at the time of his death-does this bolster the arguement about his amazing memory, or is lanuage a different set of skills?>

I would say that understanding is mostly a kind of memory, namely, implicit memory.

Reti, Tartakower, Nimzowitsch, Lasker (not a 100% sure), Vidmar, Najdorf (7), Gligoric (6), Geller.

I'm pretty sure there have been others.

<for every Alekhine or Huebner there is a Bogoljubov, whose only English word was "beer," supposedly.>

Capablanca: <‘I am always being asked, What kind of a brain must a chess champion possess? What qualities are essential? What relation is there between chess and other mental activities? What about Englishmen? etc. To begin with, I can only say that I have today a rather poor memory, though as a child I could remember anything with ease. My record is to have repeated, when a small boy, three pages of history after I had read them once, without missing a single word. But as I have grown older – in fact since I became a first-class chess player – I have always tried to forget everything which I have not considered essential to remember, and I have succeeded so well in my training that I now have difficulty in remembering things in general. It so happens, now, that while there are several experts who remember every serious game I have played in the last 22 years, I can hardly remember a single one of them. A game played today I may hazily keep in my head for a few weeks, but after that it is gone forever. No doubt my present poor memory is a cultivated one. I have been influenced to adopt this system in order to avoid loss of sleep after a hard struggle at night. Thus I can go to sleep right after a game, whether I win or lose, and one hour after a long, strenuous, simultaneous séance against any number of opponents I may be found peacefully sleeping in my bed.>

Article by Capablanca entitled ‘Chess’ published on pages 459-462 of the English Review, November 1922

<"Of my 57 years, I’ve applied at least 30 to forgetting most of what I've learned or read, and since I succeeded in this I have acquired a certain ease and cheer which I should never again like to be without.

If need be, I can increase my skill in chess, if need be, I can do that of which I have no idea at present.

I have stored little in my memory, but I can apply that little, and it is of good use in many and varied emergencies. I keep it in order, but resist every attempt to increase its dead weight.">

The Winter Palace

Most people know more as they get older:
I give all that the cold shoulder.

I spent my second quarter-century
Losing what I had learnt at university

And refusing to take in what had happened since.
Now I know none of the names in the public prints,

And am starting to give offence by forgetting faces
And swearing I’ve never been in certain places.

It will be worth it, if in the end I manage
To blank out whatever it is that is doing the damage.

In it Capa deals mostly with the concept/notion of "judgment" in chess. I often use this word, and "understanding" interchangeably.

I'm sure You'll find it interesting. It was <Karpova> that provided the link at Keres page a few months ago: