Opening line memorization

[azure tartan]

What is the best to remember opening lines

Apps like chessbook I have found not to really work for me, but just studying the database and writing it down tends not to work either

I have no issues with learning how to play positions, as I use practice games and online videos to learn how to play a position. For example i'm trying to learn the Caro kann, and I've seen a couple videos and played a few practice games with the botvinnik Carl's defence position already

My problem is the memorization of all the lines and sidelines. I can usually remember main lines, but when you have two possible moves for white on the 4th move, and each branch has 3 possibilities later on, that's what I find hard. For example, I can remember the main line of the botvinnik carls defence, but in the 4. C3 line i can't remember what to do if Be3 is played instead of Nf3

Hope that made some sense and thanks for your help in advanced

[outer dove]

do you really have to? you can play the same scheme vs non testing moves usually
the same applies here where you take on d4 once dxc5 becomes too annoying of a threat, put your bishop/knight on f5, knight on c6 and so on
here especially with the bishop placement on e3 Nh6 becomes even more attractive but Bf5 is still fine
that being said it makes sense in these lines to play the waiting game until Nf3 happens and black can play Bg4 because black doesnt have that much space for their pieces(black cant put both the knight and bishop on f5 at the same time!)
thats also the reason why Be2 is more accurate than Nf3 btw

[bright dove]

more generally (not even from chess specifically) there's a quote from a flashcard app developer along the lines of "don't attempt to memorise anything you haven't already learned"

I guess the hope is that if you play training games and do some deeper analysis to get a better understanding of the positions, then you might forget some of that later but if you just remember the moves then the understanding will come back to you in the game?

[azure tartan]

Thanks for the advice.
Captain, your advice probably explains why I can remember the solutions to fairly complex mathematical problems I did 2+ years ago, but can't remember new chess lines lol

[bright dove]

i'm not confident memorisation is good for chess openings. you want to build up an understanding of why this or that move is good in one line, why it's not as good in another variation
and if there's a move that's never played in the master database, but looks like something you can imagine a person trying, you want to know why no-one thinks it's good... because you could get a really rare move in a game, and you want to know whether there's a swift and decisive refutation, or if it's a weak move simply because it doesn't stop your main plans

arguably better to have a really deep understanding of only the first 4 moves of a major line and be aware you're on your own after that than a shaky and muddled recollection of some line 8 moves in? idk I'm not myself at the level where it's worthwhile learning many openings

[azure tartan]

Fair enough. I'm just confused since I've looked at 20 different petrov lines, all 20+ moves deep. That was 12 months ago and after all that time I remember them perfectly and learned them extremely quickly. Same with the Ruy Lopez exchange. Just can't seem to remember these particular lines in the caro

[bright dove]

sounds even more like an understanding issue idk

[azure tartan]

Yeah the issues are lines in the botvinnik carls for me @bright dove