Many people think that chess is a sport of memorizing moves and tactics, because they see people do the same moves over and over and over in many games, from openings to even end game tactics.
However it's not because we memorized the games, not by any means. For example until today I have not memorized even one single game in my life, yet I have beaten masters before. But if you showed me a game where a certain tactic is played I would still know it even if I didn't memorize the game itself.
In short, memorizing is something that happens to a chess player when he plays a lot, you will intuitively know moves without having to think, you will know what will lead to where in many scenarios (as long as you don't hit the 2000+ bracket)... And the main reason is because you had trial and error and learned these same tactics they are using by heart.
https://chess.stackexchange.com/ques...-chess-ability