Advantages of opening preperation

I have always had these questions in mind.

1. What is the best way to study openings?

2. How deep should each variation be analysed?

I think the most important thing is to understand the ideas of both sides, where the pieces are to be placed, which pieces are to exchanged, whether to play on the kingside or queenside. For example, the importance of the dark squared bishop in the dragon or the c5 break in the caro-kann.

Once the basic ideas are understood, onecan play a few games online, go through some games in the database. Also the various traps in that opening can be looked into ( various sources in the internet offer a good deal of knowledge on opening traps ). By now, a player would get a good feel for the positions arising out of the opening.

Now it is high time to get a good book on the particular opening and go through the variations.

This is a game i played recently on chess.com with 15|10 time control. I put into play some ideas i learnt.

The point of the game is to show that ideas matter more while studying openings rather than memorising concrete variations.

Please do comment if you feel otherwise.