Degree of Mental Visualization Required for Chess?

Hi, all! I have a question about the mental skills or facilities required for chess. So this is not a "how to play" chess question, but rather a question on cognition. In a nutshell: For those of you who find you are good, strong, or excellent at chess, do you find you are able to hold in mind a complete picture of a chess board with all the pieces? And even further to move the chess pieces around in your mind, and "scan" the changed chess board? Some background on why I am asking....

I am now a matured older person, but tried to pick up chess and play chess on and off for decades. I think I understand the game, and I enjoy and comprehend videos where chess masters analyze famous games. But I've never been able to develop any strength myself. My game has always been beginner level. I can't even memorize the standard chess openings.

Analyzing my own mental processes, I find I am strong with verbal and conceptual material. I am also strong at visualization, providing I am creating the visualization myself. In physics and math, I can easily visualize vector fields in a general way. I can retain general images of faces and landscapes. But when it comes to retaining a concrete image of something I've observed, my brain doesn't want to retain that. I've had similar issues in other areas -- I can read music when I am staring at the staff, but if I look away I can't retain the exact images of the notes.

So... it occurred to me to wonder, and to obtain anecdotal self-reports. Do you find you can retain highly specific images of a chess board, move-by-move? And further, to move the pieces in your mind, and follow the updated moves? And, in more detail, are you able -- and do you need to -- really visualize the whole board in one mental picture, or is it sufficient to identify and then visualize a few pieces you think most essential to the current play? Or perhaps to only visualize and retain an image of a mental board which is "cropped" to identify the essential pieces and positions of the moment?

Just wondering, thanks in advance for all input.

Mhhh, chess is not memorizing but like, how do u put this. Well, practice. 

The more you place the better visual. Growing is about tactics tho. 

*play 

Personally, I have strong visualization skills. I'm able to play blindfold chess (though I'm not that good at it). Some people don't have strong visual skills, so pattern recognition (intuition) works for them. Accumulating chess problems and solving them helps that. I have equally strong intuition and visualization, so I use a mixture of it. I mainly visualize with blindfolded chess and use my intuition to guide me. 

You said you can visualize physics and math. Are you a physicist or an engineer? I'm strongest in visualizing physics such as membranes and such and also with extra dimensions, time, and general relativity.

Physics undergrad, and picked up electronics and such during a career in electronics and software. Thanks to everyone who replied, it's interesting to learn that not everyone mentally photographs the board. And yes, I'm sure if I played more I'd pick up intuition. Other priorities, unfortunately....

Nice. Do a lot of puzzles (there's a 7 day free trial for unlimited puzzles). That will help you accumulate as much tactical problems and patterns as you can.

I can visualize beautiful women in various positions.   But future chess positions... I can't visualize too good.  

That's just inappropriate. 

In the late 1920s French cognitive sciences researchers gave a variety of intelligence, memory, logic and other tests to members of the French Chess Olympiad team (including Alekhine and famous artists Marcel Duchamp and Man Ray). The one area in which all these top players far excelled average subjects was indeed visualization and visual memory. Although many other factors go into chess proficiency it seems that visualization skills are probably the most important factor in determining the limits of anyone's chess success.

For me, I just play off on instinct until we get to a critical position. I then calculate 2-4 moves ahead in those positions with the possible contenders for best moves. I have trouble visualizing my opponent's best move but that's probably  because I play shorter time controls and I am still fairly new to the game. Sometimes my instinctual move is actually a blunder or falling into a trap but I've gotten better at recognizing those over time.

I've been playing chess more regularly in the last year and I've started to visualize chess positions in my dreams and also in the sort of half conscious state between sleep and waking. What I find is that when brain is engaged in mental chess like this I don't have a completely clear view of the pieces plotted perfectly on each square, but rather my brain keeps a sort of relationship model... Or network of the active pieces in the situation. Which pieces "see" each other along the ranks, files, and diagonals. What are the threats. Who's protecting who. That sort of thing. Then again I'm not a particularly strong player. So perhaps others have a more complete view when they visualize a game.