How does a game of chess work between two top level players? Do they have to think like 25 moves ahead to find any sort of opening against the opponent?
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They often do, but it isn’t the only thing. Preparation plays a major part. You need to study most common sequences of opening moves, with all the variations you’re likely to get. You also need to study your opponent’s games to figure out which variations they prefer or not. Most top players have giant files on their computers, with complex decision trees (“If they do this, I’ll do that”), that they try to memorise.
Of course, there are way too many variations to remember. At some point in each game, both players find themselves “out of preparation” and having to figure out what to play on the spot. Generally, based on their prep, they’ll have a good idea of the pros and cons of the position at that point and the general strategic principles at play (“I have a strong centre, but need to watch out for an attack on the kingside”). Also, having played thousands of games over the years, they’ve developed strong pattern recognition that allows them to identify possible tactics.
Therefore, memory and pattern recognition helps them calculate multiple moves in advance. How far in advance depends on how much time they have. In classical games (~90 minutes for 40 moves, with some sort of extension for subsequent moves), it is common to see players thinking for up to half an hour on a critical move, as they explore all the likely variations. However, in rapid or blitz games, you just don’t have the time to do that (luckily, neither does your opponent) so you have to rely on memory, pattern recognition and instincts. The best chess players can think fast and deep, have extraordinary abilities to recall obscure games, and have spent literal decades doing little other than playing and studying chess.
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