Yes, I see your point. It was strongly worded, I think I was just typing quickly and over-emphasized that. In my mind, I was lumping a lot of things together as ‘book theory’ but it is good to point out that for developing players, it’s not good to devote too much time to memorizing anything, whether it’s openings or solutions to chess puzzles.
What I mean about “intuitive play” being stifled early on is that one of the first things I was taught was that playing moves that “look good” or “seem right” is not the right way to learn. Very few people can be successful playing with this sort of intuition. Ironically, though, this is why many chess players list Mikhail Tal as their favorite world champion.. he frequently played by intuition and would specifically choose technically unsound positions just because they had much more complication, which just personally interested him more.
Yes, I see your point. It was strongly worded, I think I was just typing quickly and over-emphasized that. In my mind, I was lumping a lot of things together as ‘book theory’ but it is good to point out that for developing players, it’s not good to devote too much time to memorizing anything, whether it’s openings or solutions to chess puzzles.
What I mean about “intuitive play” being stifled early on is that one of the first things I was taught was that playing moves that “look good” or “seem right” is not the right way to learn. Very few people can be successful playing with this sort of intuition. Ironically, though, this is why many chess players list Mikhail Tal as their favorite world champion.. he frequently played by intuition and would specifically choose technically unsound positions just because they had much more complication, which just personally interested him more.