Depends on your strength, and on the strength of the opponents you expect to face.
For a 1500-rated player, there are many ways that you could spend your study time that would bring you more benefit... both immediately and in the future... than by studying opening lines.
Tactics (tactics! tactics!) would be number one on the list. Model mates. Endgames. Pawn structure. Opening principles (but not specific opening variations). Typical middle-game plans.
I would guess opening theory only starts to become important near master level. In any case I'm certainly not there yet (where opening theory matters in tournament games).
Not only are players able to navigate the opening with logic and principals, but on average they'll be stronger than their amateur peers who only memorize moves. In the beginning, simply try to follow the opening principals. When you lose or feel uncomfortable out of the opening, find out who left book first and play over some master games from that opening (e.g. you can use chessgames.com). As you get better you'll understand the ideas behind the moves and you'll be more aware of when difference principals can be broken.
It's also possible that Magnus is confident of winning the right to a match with Anand, and he's saving his novelties in the most critical lines for the World Championship match.
Quick counterattacks are important. Getting behind by just one minor piece can already be devastating in a game.
Chess openings are not important, and it is very easy to spend way too much time on them, to the detriment of the rest of your chess.
The more I know about learning this game, the more I believe that the level at which you start studying opening theory is the best predictor of the level you'll eventually reach.
So the longer you postpone learning about openings (and spend the time on learning about middlegames, endings, positional play, tactics, strategy, etc etc in that time instead), the better you'll eventually get.
It's also possible that Magnus is confident of winning the right to a match with Anand, and he's saving his novelties in the most critical lines for the World Championship match.
I think he's saving them for his fifth title defence. Just in case.
"Maybe memorizing openings is a waste? And probably we should focus more on other aspects of the game?"
It is very good that you asked it. Yes. Memorizing openings is just a waste of time. Why? The first arguement is that if you know and understand the basic opening principles, you can play an opening stage well. Secondly, if you are memorizing the moves, you will not understand them. If you are memorizing, you won't know what to do, when your opponent does not make a book move.
The opening stage is the easiest stage of the game! So you should just play according to the opening principles. Of course you should know what openings you are going to play, but is enough to know them until 5-6 moves. Opening theory becomes important on the masters, or rather the grandmasters level. Concrete, long openings lines are the last thing you have to know. You should know other parts of the game very well.
Yes, you should concentrate on strategy and tactics, and endgames mainly. It is good if you have a good planning skill also.
Your approach to the opening is your first plan in a chess game. As such -- a plan -- it is vitally important. After all 'a bad plan is better than none at all' -- Frank Marshall (http://www.chess-poster.com/english/notes_and_facts/chess_quotes.htm)
"Carlsen has worked on those rare, offbeat openings he is frequently employing in remarkable depth. This is just his method to keep his opponent outside his home preparation."
It sounds interesting. Could you show an example?
I always read here that Carlsen has no openings preparation, and such things. The meaning is that (according to some topics of this site) Carlsen is much worse in opening knowledge than others, but somehow he is the best. But if he simply just uses offbeat openings, that sounds interesting if he can do that on his level. Moreover, if he can play this way, maybe I will try it also. So it would be great if you could post some of these offbeat openings.
Yes, it's interesting if there's some way to avoid well-known openings and still have a fine game. Maybe in such a case one should look for agressive alternatives of preferred moves, otherwise an offbeat variation may just turn out to be a waste of a tempo at best.
"Carlsen has worked on those rare, offbeat openings he is frequently employing in remarkable depth. This is just his method to keep his opponent outside his home preparation."
It sounds interesting. Could you show an example?
I always read here that Carlsen has no openings preparation, and such things. The meaning is that (according to some topics of this site) Carlsen is much worse in opening knowledge than others, but somehow he is the best. But if he simply just uses offbeat openings, that sounds interesting if he can do that on his level. Moreover, if he can play this way, maybe I will try it also. So it would be great if you could post some of these offbeat openings.
Openings become more important at the master level.
You can get by with just fundamental concepts and tactics up to about the 2000 level, but after that, as you face tougher opposition, the battle for an advantage right from the start becomes more and more critical.
With thousands of various move combinations, is it really necessary to memorize chess openings up to, say, even 6 moves or can one play by his own logic?
And the bigger question: Do chess openings really matter? I mean, knowing the fundamentals and basics of openings (piece development, castling etc..) leads to playing some openings (Such as the italian game) quite intuitively. Maybe memorizing openings is a waste? And probably we should focus more on other aspects of the game?
I believe Magnus Carlsen is an example of my proposition. But then again, he's a genius. Can ordinary people like us survive without opening theory?
Well, an interview where magnus said he didn't study opening as much as other GM's slowly morphs on the internet into "Magnus doesnt study openings at all".
For Magnus, I imagine "not studying openings" probably means he only spends 3-4 hours a day on them, instead of 5-6.
I find it interesting that the higher-rated players are saying "don't bother studying opening lines at your level of strength, study tactics, model mates, endgames, etc"... while the lower-rated players seem to think that studying opening lines is worthwhile at this level.
Note that there is a big difference between studying opening lines and studying opening principles.
To be able to use your opening advantage (if you get some), you have to know how, in other words you need to be very good at early middlegame planning and in calculation. Otherwise chances are you'll waste that advantage.
I've come to believe that if you are a class player playing rated tournament chess at FAST (G/30 time controls ) such as the ones in most US weekend swiss tournaments, booking up a bit can't hurt as you don't burn the clock trying to "figure out the 1st 5-10 moves" over the board / save most of your time for a playable middlegame.
Though even here breadth makes more sense than depth ... have a general playable system or answer for most lines as white and black, look up the games afterwards to see where you or your opponent deviated/what was a better move to play.
Rinse and repeat and let your memory's tree gently grow leaves one by one and increase opening knowledge, one move at a time.
I also realize that it is silly to force-feed the latest fashionable opening book down your throat hoping you'll apply all of that with immediate positive results.
Any opening you could imagine for the first three maybe four moves has already been played out in major games. They've been studied inside and out. The ones that are prefered are called "book moves" or "opening book moves" These are the ones that made the games last longer than ten minutes.
Since chess is a game of perfect knowledge, it has a "solution" of best moves, although it might well be unknown to us forever due to the enormous size of 32 piece tablebases. A good chunk of the universe would be be needed to store the information, but nevertheless, the solution does "exist" in the same sense that the 10^100000th prime number does.
Whatever the solution of a forced win might be, assuming a forced win exists and chess is not a draw with perfect play, I wonder if it involves a common opening, or is some strange sequence of opening moves....I would think it's the latter, since there are many more irregular possibilities.
How ironic it would be if the solved chess opening is some bizarre sequence that we would never consider worthy?
In the meanwhile, I guess we will have to stick with our known opening principles!
With thousands of various move combinations, is it really necessary to memorize chess openings up to, say, even 6 moves or can one play by his own logic?
And the bigger question: Do chess openings really matter? I mean, knowing the fundamentals and basics of openings (piece development, castling etc..) leads to playing some openings (Such as the italian game) quite intuitively. Maybe memorizing openings is a waste? And probably we should focus more on other aspects of the game?
I believe Magnus Carlsen is an example of my proposition. But then again, he's a genius. Can ordinary people like us survive without opening theory?