Intuition in chess.

When I hear strong chess players explaining why Magnus Carlsen is the best player in the world, they are very often talking about his great intuition for the game. What does this "intuition" consist of? Is it mostly pattern recognition from intense studying over the years, combined with an innate understanding of chess geometry?

the ability to understand something immediately, without the need for conscious reasoning.

Subconscious reflex recognition. When you look at a desk, you don't calculate and reason out what it is. You just recognise it almost instantly. Just like roller skating. You start out using conscious reasoning and eventually delegate it to subconscious execution. That is a gut feeling. Think of your brain as a team of parallel processors.