Opening study = waste of time?

I don't understand the idea of a "prepared" opening. There are just so many possible defenses, variations, variations of variations ect.  How can you read a book about an opening and expect any of it to help you in a game? Its like spending your free time memorizing the patterns on a ceiling tile, pointless. I realize some knowledge of the first 5 or 6 moves is important but beyond that... I just don't get it. 

You must be joking.

If you know who your opponent is and what opening he is going to play you can prepare an opening against him. This is one of the best parts of the game for me.

Ok, well... the possibilities are practically astronomical. Please, grace me with your wisdom.

I've heard that in-depth opening study isn't really that important to memorize until you hit high C or B class strength. Until then weaker players like myself are told to concentrate on opening principles and maybe a few basic opening lines in order to get a good grasp on the concepts. Memorizing every Sicilian Defense line isn't going to do you any good if you can't understand what the position is giving you. Very rarely do lower rated players go that far into book lines anyways.

And your opponent will most likely do the same. No advantage. 

If you are serious about chess and becoming a strong player then ofcourse opening study is not a waste of time. I believe it also depends on the level you are currently playing . The higher the level the more important openings become. Very weak players make terrible blunders , a lot , and until they stop doing that there isnt much sense in studying openings. 

You have a valid point, but you must consider it is like preparing for your future by study or job change; you cannot know the future but you can try to make yourself ready to meet all eventualities.

Having said that it is true you can go a long way in chess achievement without prolonged study of opening lines by simply following the rules of opening play. Ultimately in any game each player is on his own and has to muster his own abilities to win.

I get it. But the numbers add up quickly. There will be dozen of sensible counters to your opening. Dozens of "sub-types" of that counter they have to choose from and countless strategies within them. I suppose if you and your opponent are both going down the same war-torn pathways of popular openings, then those books might come in handy. 

A) You are wrong. There are not dozens of sensible counters to each opening.

B) Many of the variations will be similar, requiring a similar knowledge of the positions involved. Once you know an opening properly, you know why the moves work, not just what they are, and you can apply it to pretty much any situation you find yourself in in those openings.

C) If you don't do it and your opponent DOES, then you are totally screwed. So where's the sense in not?

D) Often your opponent will go down the main lines anyway. If he deviates early, you know its probably not a good move anyway.

Ok, that makes sense. 

Put simply, the higher the rating the more needed is preparation. Also, a prepared opening can simply mean that you get positions that more fit your style, which is never bad.

Definitely not needed at lower levels, but needed at higher levels due to what others have said.

Not true. Many of the opponents I play do not study openings other then the ones they already know. It is not hard to get someone out-of-book if you do a little homework.

Perhaps it might seem like this. But a little study goes a long way.
For instance, I am playing in a tournament at the moment. Following a loss in games one and two, a put in some opening study. The very next game, my opponent played the first 15 moves to the book I had read the night before, and a further few that are themic in the position - talk about handy! I got a great position because of it, which would not have been possible otherwise (my opponent had +500pts on me).

Even if you are a wizard at tactics, you cannot possibly calculate the winning combination from move one. Not even computers can do it (yet). That means that you have to rely on empirical (inexact) knowledge of the sensibility of different openings. If it has been previously discovered that a certain move order leads to a very bad position, it would be best to know this before you embark on such a perilous path. Assuming that your opponent has the same tactical skills as you do, then you don't want to let him freely into a position where he can use those skills to a better advantage than you can.

Of course, if you're at such a low level that positional advantages are systematically discarded by terrible blunders, then this doesn't matter (below about 2000 on chess.com online). If, on the other hand, you have complete confidence in your tactical know-how, then you should do your best to get into a position where you can use it. Take me, for instance: before I started to study openings in more detail, my chess.com online rating was hovering around 1700-1800. Now that I study each opening that I play against, my rating is over 2200 and hasn't even stopped climbing.

I sense from the tenure of your approach you are concerned about the possible time and effort involved in opening study. This is a personnel decision, for my part when a game becomes work it ceases to be enjoyable. I do enjoy looking at opening lines and experimenting but I do not make chess a rod for my own back.

There is no short cut to Mastery its a gruelling road and one that may well involve missing many other of life's pleasures.

This is true. Thanks for your replies everyone, I do have a better understanding now.

Chess players' greatness is judged from 2 things:

1) Their rating (!)

2) Their opening (?!)

When you first start playing chess, a solid grasp of opening principles is the key. After you know the opening principles you move on to finding an opening that you like. You start with some basic openings before moving onto more complex openings. When you start to play tournament games, you'll want to know variations. If you're serious about playing at a more advanced level, you need to know your opening of choice inside and out. You can't just memorize the first six moves of the mainline and call it a day. Knowing the variations of an opening thoroughly comes in handy because an opening can be crushed if you don't know how to handle a good counter play during the opening.

I do see your point. It takes a great deal of time to completely learn an opening. I teach my students the opening principles first so they can deal with a wide variety of openings. However, I don't teach them specific openings until much later on, after they mastered tactics, strategies, etc. After a student has a good grasp on their game we start working with specific openings.

i learned openings using chessmaster X, now i don't get owned in the opening stage