Does anyone NOT study openings?

I'm starting to consider and play opening plans, which I want to acomplish certain goals. This playing style depends more on applying chess theroy to positional feature or what phase of game in then on memorizing a maneuvering order or pattern recognizing. This bring me to another point about learning chesss. The best place to learn about chess is by studying endgame theroy where there are less maneuvering choices to winning position. For example, learning the mating combination with knight, bishop, and king against a king teaches us a lot about how material coordination and space, which may be used in opening and middle game positions.

I had't studied openings other then to read what ones I typically used.  I use a very minor opening for white with huge success as it is little studied.  I am so familiar with it that I am most confident and comfortable with my resulting middlegames.  HOWEVER, now that I am seeing these same piece configurations I have found myself delving into the openings in an attempt to learn what ones frequently produce these configs.  Due to frequent play, not study, I am ok with just about any opening.  I don't think opening theory really needs to mastered until you are quite a high level of play.  So long as you play solid and remember the importance of the small things like open bishop lines, pawn structure and tempo then just attack and attack often! 

agree a hundred percent, my first book was a book endgames not openings. 

There seems to be different discussions here, and some people talk about studying openings as if it where only memorisation.

I've recently started studying the openings some, with the help of a very helpfull book, Mastering the Chess Openings, and my strategic understanding that this book has provided has helped me find the right move in games where I had no idea what the theory suggested.

So yes, I do study openings, the ideas in the various openings, I haven't done it for long though. Didn't want to start studying the openings before I hit a certain rating.

It doesn't make sense to overstudy openings, and it probably doesn't make sense for most hobbyists to study openings that are theory intense.  It is a good idea to understand the plan of the opening you play.  Otherwise you're giving away 33% of the game or maybe more. 

The funny thing is I kind of like the opening part of the game, so that I can use my familiarity to my advantage, to get into positions I like. I mean that's really the first part of the fight at least at top level: a theoretical battle to get not only a good position but one they like. When people are good enough to nurse advantages, this becomes important, because the ways you may have learned about applying pressure in the middlegame might not apply to your passive position you ended up with in the opening. Again I said openings are not a priority at amateur level, but it has its benefits and can be fun. But at top level, absolutely it's a priority.

Chess 960 is ok and it can be interesting to try to make a plan from move one, but I definitley prefer regular chess. When chess was made they didn't just toss the pieces into random positions, they put them into positions where they could work together the best.

In fact, as white at least, I almost always end up with the better position. Yeah, when my tactics were brittle as well as endgames and playing better positions in general I would completely screw them up. Once I balanced my game, though, I made good use of those good positions and almost always had an ACTIVE plan (while my opponent might have to be passive) which is great for those that know how to use them. So I don't think learning chess is like "ok, get to 2100 and you can study some openings". Why take it that far? Learning a few openings (imagine trying to figure out the french yourself or something) and their ideas makes things so much easier for that phase of the game and if you know the plans then you should play the middlegame well too. Everything should be taken in moderation, and nothing should be completely ignored. It's like never learning opening principles, which can be taught in like a minute, but makes things so much easier. Sure that won't make you a GM, but a beginner will probably be making moves much more logical than they would have come up without them. What good is an extra queen if you don't learn the basic mates? You should learn the basics of everything.

It makes sense to go over the games you play... since every game has an opening you ought to study that phase of the game (along with the rest of it) and and see if you can find improvements to both your play and that of your opponent. This should help keep things in perspective.

Sometimes the memorization does not come from a theory book, like MCO, but instead from looking at thematic master games (like "oh, this is Karpov's innovation") which by looking through them you'll probably find out why the moves are the way it is.

Going over games is really a good idea, especially losses, but even in wins to see where you made mistakes.  By going over those points, over time, the types of misstakes should become less frequent.  This does assume a decent understanding of tactics and basic strategy is in place.

To cut down on the time it takes though I only look through the games worth looking through, and ones where I couldn't quite figure out what I should do.

Best post here.

Here we have a professor evaluating the posts. Even if your results had nothing to do with your opening knowledge (which they quite frequently do), you might still want to study openings for general knowledge, historical perspective, etc etc.

My rating has nothing to do with it. Scarblac made a number of general observations which were (I believe) true, and they were based on common sense and observation, hardly at all on chess knowledge.

PS - mocking other peoples' ratings is usually considered immature!

Did I mention your rating ?

Maybe I should make myself more clear, I am not saying this as one who studies openings intensely any more. I do have some basic knowledge of the openings but I don't memorize a lot of variations. What I am saying is that I don't think it is not important.

Not directly, but one could certainly infer from your (needlessly) sarcastic comment that that was what was intended.

And for all you know I might be a professor in real life!

I think you should study all areas of the game to improve.  But I think Capablanca was right when he said study the endgame first, then middle game, then openings.

I seldom actually "study" chess. I play over games, do tactical problems and puzzles and occasionally read some boring tomes.  I feel if someone wants to dedicte him/herself to chess, then a programmed course of study is a necessity, but if one plays for the sheer pleasure of playing, then study becomes secondary (and, depending on the individual, possibly even counter-productive). 
That said, I agree that knowledge of endgames is probably more important than any other phase because it teaches you where to direct your game.  However, you face the conundrum that endgames aren't so important if you never get to play one . . .and middlegames become tedious if you always reach them at a disadvantage.  So, a balanced course of study is probably the best approach.
But what do I know? . . . I don't study.

It seems now that I overinterpreted your comment, but I found it somewhat annoying that you post to evaluate other people's posts instead of to say something of your own.