True. I used to really enjoy playing casual chess as a kid. Analyzing the positions and try to come up with strategies on the fly was a lot of fun. When I realized that "proper" chess was mostly about memorizing positions and plays and sort of have it all pre-computed I lost all interest in playing.
I vaguely remember some factoid about how Magnus could tell you from memory the 20 exact opening and 20 exact closing moves of every championship game since the dawn of time or some such whatever, and I was like "oh wow great for him but what a ridiculously stupid game to continue playing."