rubin427 wrote:I've found many of these responses interesting - in that most of them are significantly different than what I experience.
For completeness, I'll post what I often experience.
After a game, I usually can not remember the opening unless my opponent is helping me replay our game. This often eliminates the possibility of replaying my own games completely from memory. (which is something I value, and I will actively work on it.)
Instead what I often experience is a very vivid visual memory of the board position at key points. If a situation comes up that requires a lot of reading, such as a critical life and death situation / capturing race / dragon fight, that board position will haunt me for the next few days. If there is a slow moment at work the position comes back to my mind and I will continue reading it out long after the game is over. Before I started playing Go, I would almost never have trouble falling asleep. Now sometimes I will lay awake working out a situation like this before finally drifting off.
Now comes the part that is a little difficult to describe. I can only actively read variations in a very tight circle. Maybe three to four stones in radius. I can visualize a static view of the board that is larger - maybe slight larger than one quarter of the board. But beyond this, the board gets foggy. I have to actively push my window of attention around to see/remember other areas of the board.
I guess the reason I bring this up is that strong players often emphasize "whole board vision" during game reviews. It seems likely that I am taking this phrase entirely to literally (i.e. close your eyes and imagine the WHOLE board). While also mixing up ideas about "remembering one's games" vs. "visualizing a board position".
Anyhow, the replies here have given me more to think about.
Hmm, I think you're not far off - we're using "storyline" in a metaphorical sense, as in "it's easier to remember how the game went by idea than to remember the visual image associated with every move of the game." The visual memory is definitely part of it, just not the whole thing. When replaying an attack in my head or reading out variations during a game it uses the same sort of visual playback. I see the whole board, but usually I see a version of it more like a diagram. I couldn't tell you how closely spaced the wood grain was from the board we played on. It often looks like one of the yellow-painted Ing boards in my head. Sometimes just black-and-white like on paper.
It's brute force vs. intuition, I guess. Rather than take a picture of every move, you remember the ideas associated with that move as shorthand. Then the pictures come from experience seeing them in your head already. So mine look like Ing boards and paper diagrams because most of my really really serious games were from tournaments and most of my L&D problems are from books. Since that's where I spent most of my visual space brain power when I was learning, that's what I have associated with it.
So memorizing games gives you more practice at turning storylines into images. The opening is the hardest because there's no context. If all you've got is "Once upon a time," the story can go anywhere. Once three or four moves are down, the thread of the story picks up and it's much easier.
"Whole board vision" sort of does mean what you think it does. If asked directly, people who say it are just telling you that your reading and/or strategy should extend further. But of course, it can't do that if you can't see it. So the stretch is a necessary factor if you want to know what happens 8 or 9 moves down the road trying to follow a center-oriented strategy.
I don't know any special tips on memorizing those first few moves from pro games, unless they're unusual for some reason. But replaying your own games soon afterward is definitely doable with practice. Don't know any special tips there either, maybe you can tie it in your head to the cup of coffee you got before that round started.
