What rating can you comfortably reach without touching openings?

All the game phases require some knowledge. At amateur level, the opening is by far the least important.

I'd rather say that the most essential knowledge is the endgame, as without it there cannot be proper strategical planning, and a lot of times, not even proper evaluating of combinations.

well  alot of  cooments  and  difrent  one , and  intresting  ,, i play  just 2 difrent opening , and i like them  2 opening ,,,my  father  is  good  player and  he gevs all  time  black beshop  for  free,, i cant explain  everythin  because  my english is not  very  good .

With due respect, you may have some good idea about chess, but absolutely none about chess training.

Good knowledge of the basic endgames and endgame technique is of paramount importance.

I see.  So nobody wanted to know what rating I can reach without touching openings.  :(

There is no answer to that- it depends on your understanding skill. You can be a very strong player with absolutely minimal opening knowledge. I just get annoyed with people which express a non-existing authority, while myself have trained a few grandmasters, as well as two junior world champions- so I do know a bit what I'm talking about...

Wow this has certainly given me a lot to think about!

Absolutely. Their best chance to learn how the chess pieces are actually moving.

This applies for players starting from 1300 up to 2200+.

My first chess book was Tarrasch "Das Schachspiel". He starts with endings too. I confess, though, that this was quite a little bit boring back then when my father patiently went through this with me. But it certainly feels good to know how to win a Lucena position. :) It's also quite interesting to see how many people play a good middlegame, but throw away the most basic of pawn endgames at the first opportunity. 

Like any part of the game, do not concentrate on moves. During your study, it is important to be on the search for ideas!! Many GRANDMASTERS (the really good folks, like that Kasparov fellow) say to stay away from exact opening study until you are a proficient player. The opening of the game is one of the most difficult because all of the pieces are still on the board, so the amount of ideas that are happening at once is very large. The opening phase of the game is always played first, but should be studied LAST! Welcome to the joke that is chess, that superlogical beast that is so often illogical. The foundation for opening study is born from endgame study, and from middlegame study. Endgame technique will fine tune your finishing skills, it will help you make good friends with your pieces, to learn what strengthens and weakens them. From this strong base, you build your knowledge of middlegame configurations and how to transfer them to your winning endgame situations. After middlegame study, you work back to openings, and the transition from the opening to the middlegame positions that you have learned are favorable. Without a foundation, opening study will seem meaningless and overwhelming. You will look at the gigantic forrest of opening trees and ask yourself, why? Why this move on the 20th turn, why is it slightly better for white, what do i do to make slightly better winning? I like to think about it as a paint by numbers canvas. If you just hop into the opening of the game with no technical skill, your canvas is completely blank, there is no guide, so you're gonna get squiggles and blotches and the opening picture will no resemble much. If you have worked hard on the endgame and middlegame positions, the background template will be on your canvas, you will know what picture to aim for. To be sure, you're not gonna make Picasso, few of them do, but your chess game will start to make a prettier picture, and at times, be quite artful.

One question to consider here is what is meant by "studying the opening."

At some level it is not possible to reach any reasonable level of play (even 1000 USCF) without some notions of what to do in the opening. Even if all you have "studied" are simple basics of control the center, develop your knights before bishops, move to active squares, don't allow your pieces to be left unguarded." That is, at some level, opening study.

And my son just recently struggled mightily in his first foray into OTB scholastic chess becuase he didn't understand the opening phase of the game well. He was getting positionally crushed out of the gate because he wasn't thinking about his openent's ideas and was being too reactionary. So, we "studied the opening" though we didn't study anything to any depth and talked almost entirely about principles of good play. And his results improved almost immediately. 

I found for myself, a few hundred rating points up from my son's 700 level, that I need to know, not lines, but the sort of structure I'm aiming for. I don't understand the nuance of move orders in my favorite openings, but I know what pieces need to be where, what squares are important, what my basic "goals" should be, and that understanding has helped me win games over better players.

But to some people, what I've done still wouldn't be "studying an opening." At some point if I want to improve further I'm sure I'll have to study transpositions, memorize specific lines, and so on, but is that still "studying the opening?" I suspect that for a world class elite player who is investigating openings with the intent of finding novelties and new ways to play old ideas, and so forth, even that sort of line memorization wouldn't be seen as "studying the opening" compared to what they're doing.

I think a good part of this conversation is showing more that different people have different ideas about what it means to study an opening. And until we're all talking about the same activities, consensus will elude us. 

If your opponent hasn't castled yet, he is free to chase the bishop with h6, g5 and get a kingside pawn storm going.   If he has castled then this (playing h6 and g5) weakens the pawn structure in front of his king inviting a sacrifice and king hunt.  There is a trap known as the Steinitz trap in the Italian Opening  based on this idea.   Black ends up sacrificing his queen and mating.   I haven't been able to find the Steinitz trap in my current openings book but if you still have the MCO edition that Larry Evans wrote you will find it.  Also in the book The Chess Players it is featured in a game between Morphy's grandparents. 

It also depends a lot on what sort of openings you wind up playing.  Some openings - the Sicilian Dragon springs to mind - have large volumes of theory that you need to study to get through the extremely sharp opening.  Others are simpler or more forgiving.

 +1 for streetfighter

With regards to the CM Streetfighter and IM pfren debate, I would have to say tactics is going to be paramount (used on purpose ) for any expert and below. After that point, endgames become increasingly more important and become a necessitty to focus on (perhaps equal to tactics?).

A class C player should have some basic ending knowledge, but not as deep as that problem shown above. Tactics still decide most games up to a master level, so for those players it should be the top focus.

Note: I don't really teach (I have a little in the past), but it is just from personal experience.

The question is what "basic" endgame knowledge entails. Would it be scaled like in Silman's Endgame Course? Or would that be already too much? (I don't really know whether his lesson contents really do reflect the needs of people in each category; some say his is A-class stuff at least already seems a bit arcane for that group of players).  

In my experience I wasn't able to evaluate positions at all until I learned endgames... and I also experienced my tactical ability increase due to correct evaluations (both spotting combinations and evaluating their end positions).  So my experience aligns with what pfren is saying.

I see how allowing a rook to drop is catastrophic (one of CMstreetfighter's example games).  I wonder if that player should have allowed that position at all in the first place and also this seems more a lack of concentration than lack of knowledge on how forks work.

Not that I don't understand the point people are making for tactics.  I agree they're important.  Just my 2 cents from my experience.

Some day I will have to study endings I reckon... 

Personally I think that to master endgames up to a very good level, the essential readings are first "Practical Chess Endings" by Keres, and after learning the basics+ from it, "Endgame Strategy" by Mikhail Shereshevsky. Both very high quality, no-nonsense books. Many people say that Shereshevsky's book may be a bit too much for amateurs, but I strongly disagree: It's easy to understand and absorb if you know well the chess fundamentals.

Silman's book on endings is reallly good, but I prefer reading books written by players stronger than I am- and Silman was alwys, more or less, on the same league as me: a rather weak IM.

Openings and endgames can be learned systematically and played relatively fast.

Middlegames are full of "suprises," both tactical and strategic, and it's very, very, easy to make "unnecessary" pawn moves that effectively weaken your postion in the middlegame.

But it's entirely possible to play "safe," narrow openings, and to play "defensively" during the middlegame--focusing on "safe exchanges" ala the Gennady Nesis "Tactical Chess Exchanges" and "Exchanging to Win in the Endgame," books."

And if you are willing to simplify middlegame positions, via "safe piece exchanges," then you will certainly reach an endgame.  Preferably a level one, at least.  Then you are free to "play for a win."

But if you play into the teeth of sharp, mainline, classical openings, then of course you might not ever get into the endgame.  As the three games listed above amply demonstrate.

But if you're playing the white pieces, then surely (using the suggestions above) you can probably force your opponent (via simplifying exchanges) into a "level endgame."  Just use the Edgar Mednis book (@1982) "From the Opening into the Endgame,"  and blast you way (with white) into the endgame.

And "endgame knowledge" will win games, BUT only if you'll willing to adjust your openings and middle game tactics to actually reach those endgames.

So don't take risks, and wait until you reach the endgame, before playing for a win.  I seem to recall that Pal Benko was "greatly feared" for this type of play.

And as for what phases of the game to study most, isn't that mostly a personal preference? And the source of endless, mindless, blathering arguments, about what personal chess style is "the best" way to reach whatver chess level is being asserted.

In my experience [USCF A Class, five times, but never over 1900, OTB] chess players in the 90+ percentile (>1800 USCF) are largely obsessed with the game, and devote @3-4 weekends per month competing.  Their wives are chess widows.

Personally, I belive any "serious student" of the game can make USCF B Class (1600-1799) in 1-2 years by studying just Tactics and Endgames and playing regularly, OTB.  But to play consistently above 1800 USCF you'll need a different, "business model."  And probably one that's adapted to your personal style and preferences.

So if 90 percent of active OTB tournament players (in the U.S.) never break 1800 USCF, then how high a rating can you get "without touching" the openings?

Probably 1800 USCF, if you are (at least) partly "obsessed" with the game.  And lower still if you are not so obsessed.

I don't know anyone above USCF 1900 who isn't "obsessed with the game," or retired, or both.  Indeed, lots of the retirees have preserved their ratings because that have stopped competing OTB.  If they started competing OTB again, at G/15 or G/30, "the kids" would probably have them for lunch, and they know it.  

I don't argue about having a complete learning course. Quite the opposite. I argue about the priorities.

Take for example Artur Jusupov's excellent "Build up your chess" series of books. The books is rather a coach companion thing, but they can be used by players as well. Jusupov, who is a first class trainer (and, before that, a world class player), mainly focuses on strategy and endgames, then he gives some fair share on tactics, and his suggested openings are sparse, and... lame: fairly unambitious. He does not even bother giving variations- he prefers concrete positional ideas bundled with the specific opening.