**How much time should you invest into openings?**

Below 800 rating, don't worry about anything related to specific openings. Just follow principles: Put your pawns in the center, develop knights and bishops, castle. Games will be decided by tactical blunders. Openings are utterly irrelevant unless they drop a piece or more.

Between 800 and 1200, it's great if you know the idea of your opening. For example, for the Italian this could be: 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 … 3. Bc4: *Develop your pieces quickly to good squares, castle, attack f7.*

Between 1200 and 1600, you should have a knowledge of the common variations (e.g. *Exchange* / *Advanced*). You should have a rough plan for each, plus know about 4 moves deep what you're going to play, and know some traps.

Between 1600 and 2000, you should know the plans of all main variations of your opening and common traps for both sides. Here it starts to make sense to have some actual written-down preparation.

Between 2000 and 2400, you may need to actually memorize some lines. You should have a complete overview of all variations and your plans and pitfalls in them, and be aware of any traps or complications.

Above 2400, you may need to actually memorize many lines, as opponents *will* know theory. Positional errors will be punished at this level even in blitz, so you must be able to adapt and chose between multiple plans, and also be aware of all plans for the other side. Traps are actually less important to *play*, because both sides will *know* them.

That is just a rough guide, according to typical progression and sensible time distribution:
If you absolutely adore memorizing all 20-move lines in the Najdorf in 700-level chess, go ahead! But don't be disappointed if your opponent diverges at move 2.
On the flipside, until ~1800 you can play with opening principles only, without even knowing the names of your openings.

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Super Admins