Can someone play without openings?

(Sorry about my bad english ^^)

Let me be more clear, I don't really like to study openings and I think that other parts of the game are more importants. With that in mind, can I get away "skipping" the opening study? (Of course I have some knowledge about openings, just not a deep one). Or am I commiting a mistake?

"... This book is the first volume in a series of manuals designed for players who are building the foundations of their chess knowledge. The reader will receive the necessary basic knowledge in six areas of the game - tactcs, positional play, strategy, the calculation of variations, the opening and the endgame. ... To make the book entertaining and varied, I have mixed up these different areas, ..." - GM Artur Yusupov

If you're losing games in the openings, study openings.
If you're losing games due to tactics, study tactics.
If you're losing games in the endgame, study endgames.

You know best what this means for you.

If you're losing games in the openings, study tactics.
If you're losing games due to tactics, study tactics.
If you're losing games in the endgame, study tactics.

Fixed it for you. ;P

Both Bramblyspam and SIowMove (wait, that letter in the username SIowmove is a capital letter I, not a small letter l, am I right?) are correct.

For me, it goes like this.

If you're losing games in the openings, try again with another game.
If you're losing games due to tactics, try again with another game.
If you're losing games in the endgame, try again with another game.

If you're losing games due to time trouble, try again with another game.

If you're losing games because of internet connection, get a better connection.

If you're losing games because you resign in winning positions, it's a pity.

"If you want to improve in classical ( slow ) chess you have to work on all 3 phases of the game . ..." - NM Reb (August 30, 2017)

Portisch advocated that sort of thing in a contribution to a 1974 book about how to play the opening. The Portisch chapter is about 40 pages and concludes with, "... I urge the reader to do his own analysis in the development of an opening repertoire."

Yes, work on all 3 phases of the game—by improving your tactics.

"... In the middlegame and especially the endgame you can get a long way through relying on general principles and the calculation of variations; in the opening you can go very wrong very quickly if you don't know what ideas have worked and what haven't in the past. It has taken hundreds of years of trial and error by great minds like Alekhine and, in our day, Kasparov to reach our current knowledge of the openings. ..." - GM Neil McDonald (2001)

  "...in the opening you can go very wrong very quickly if you don't know what ideas have worked and what haven't in the past. ..."

I think that's a very important point to make. You can study tactics all you want, but if you don't get into any positions we're you can use tactics to your advantage, it won't matter very much.

That's not to say that tactics aren't important and quite probably the most important thing for beginners and amateurs to improve upon, but if you ignore openings completely, you'll probably lose a lot of games you wouldn't need to.

Obviously, playing chess without an opening is completely impossible. I think, perhaps, people might benefit from looking at the logical structures and meanings of such questions.

Openings are tactics. Every opening move is tactical in nature. There's no opening move where tactics aren't at play. Some tactics are obvious, like immediate combinations. Others are threats of future combinations, pawn displacements, square control, or piece maneuvering. But it's all tactics.

If you work on your tactics, you'll figure out what ideas work and what don't.

Example:

You can do this with every opening, really—find the tactics behind each move.

To study openings is really just a matter of looking at opening moves in an attempt to understand the tactics behind them.

If you improve your tactical strength, you'll see more tactical resources in the opening, and be better equipped to find your strongest moves, whether the game is in book or not.

Ah when you`re just redefining everything as tactics, then you`re obviously right, of course.

Touché.

Though, I don't mean to say everything is tactics, even though, I admit, it does sound like I'm saying that—but rather: I believe there are tactical threats (or resources) to be found in every move.

If we take a random Grandmaster and throw them into a random position (opening or otherwise)—they'll be able to find good moves because of their tactical vision—as, IMO, there's always something to be found.

No studying required.

Try www.365chess.com Opening Explorer.

Could one find working 2017 opening ideas in the 1964 MCO by GM Larry Evans? Had GM Larry Evans not worked on tactics? How about if we consider GM Reuben Fine's 1948 book, Practical Chess Openings?

WELL, NOT SURE IF THIS WAS ALREADY MENTIONED but, Capablanca never studied openings, he just played logical, good, intuitive moves, and then studied middlegame

I haven't read these books, so I can't answer your question. But likely? Yes. Many of the openings in there are likely completely fine. But if they're not fine by today's standards, then it means they fail because of some tactical resources that have since been discovered, rendering the lines obsolete.

Which, again, reinforces my point: tactics.

Tactics that one can realistically expect to be able to work out over the board?