Are openings important? Recommendation

Once I asked a high rated player about openings since I was being beaten over and over as black with e5 and d5. It went something like this

-Should I study openings in depth?

-no, maybe you should try other openings. What kind of positions do you like ?

 - I dont know,... I dont like Queens

-well play d6 and e5 and exchange Queens :).

Since there Im playing this kind of position (if Im lucky without queens) with ...good results?

The problems is that I cant find anything to play as white.

Would you help me?

Of Course They Are!!! The First 12 Moves Decide The Fate Of Your Game..........
Opening Rules: 

 1. Most important squares in Chess game (in the opening stage and middle game) are e4 e5 and d4 d5 known as center

 2. All the moves in the initial stage will be motivated and oriented to control the center. Even 1stmove of ‘e4’ controls center as it controls d5. To get equal black should control d4 so there is many replays like e5, c5 etc (it makes openings sequences).

3. Do not move an already developed (played) piece again and again in the opening, as it leads the opponent to develop his pieces faster and our position will become inferior. Normally knight should be developed before its Bishop.

4. Pawn moves should be in such a way that it will not create any bad Bishops.

5. Knights should be developed aiming to control the center. So Nf3 Nc3 (for White) and  Nf6 Nc6 (for Black) are the best move for knights as it controls center. In some cases, moves such as Ne2, Nd2 Ne7 Nd7 is also allowed based on typical openings (these moves also controls center).

 Nh3 or Nh6 and Na3 or Na6 are the worst moves!

6. If a center pawn is blocking the way of a Bishop, then such a Bishop is known as a bad Bishop (also a bad bishop is which have more own pawns in the same colour on board). Hence our pawn structure should according to avoid a bad bishop.

7. Queen is most powerful piece and it should avoid attacks of the minor pieces. So queen can not be developed into center or opponents area in the initial stage as it make our position bad or loss of Queen. Role of Queen in the opening and middle is to support other pieces. So queen can be developed in to d2 e2 c2 etc to support the Bishops and Knights based on openings. Queen can be used for attack only if the opponent deviate from the openings and make a weakness which we can exploit successfully.

8. Opening rules should be followed, As scientific analyze have fixed openings. We should follow opening moves. If we deviate from an opening move and if your move is not included in any of the variations approved, a good player can exploit your error and he can win.

9. Opening error make you loss the game.

10. Every Pawn Move creates a weakness. So Pawns in a,b, g and h should not be moved in careless manner as it will be difficult to support them when the game progresses. These pawns should be moved if needed to defend a castled king / some attacks.

11. It is important to learn opening moves and if the opponent makes an opening error move we should learn / practice how to get positional / material advantage from the error that the opponent is made.

12. If the opponent is not trying to control the center, we should take the advantage to control the center by moving e4, then d4 then c4 etc.

13. in the early stages of the game it is not advisable to trade our Bishop for Knights without having specific advantage.

14. So Pinning a Knight without specific reason is not advisable as if we pin a knight on f6 by Bg5 when you have already castled and the opponent is not, he can play … h6, Bh4 g5!, Bg3. this can make our castling side weak as there is a good chance to create open files g or h to get our King attacked. 

http://exeterchessclub.org.uk/content/ten-rules-opening

That's all you need to know about openings for the foreseeable future.

Umm no. They do have some influence but lets not exaggerate.

An error in the first ten or so moves can decide the fate of the game. But they themselves do not.

Umm Yes You Are Right Here 

Why run from your problem? If you have trouble with queens then work on it, running from the problem will just stunt your growth. As for openings, I have not studied an opening yet and I reach playable positions in many of my games. I buy into the notion that opening study just isn't necessary for most players who need to work on seeing tactics, learning how to play end games, creating a thinking process, and things like that. That's my opinion.

Thanks to all for your responses specially @ganeshmalpani2 @pfren @SQxA.

I don´t really want to study openings but I do want to reach certain type of position (that I enjoy playing) that are queen-less, very few tactics and pieces. Something like this will be perfect. http://www.chess.com/echess/game?id=106504440

 Please don´t comment on the game cause is still taking place. I want to reach this kind of positions as white. As black is seems easier to achieve (playing d6 and e5) but as white that you are supposed to have an advantage I don´t know how to proceed.

Any concrete recommendation?

P.S @SQxA sometimes you just had to run away from problems 

@clarpaca
do you want recommendations for that game of yours ( http://www.chess.com/echess/game?id=106504440) 
or for achieving a queenless position?
If you are talking about the game..
you can safely go on with fxe4 Nxe4 (since fxe4 loses to Rg4) and then you can continue with f5 and the position is pretty neat for you 

Petroff and Orthodox Variation as black and the Four Knights as white.

Have you analysed your games and attempted to ascertain whether you are more successful in open, semi open or closed positions?  Dont listen to any of the comments here until you have done so, what is right for other people may not necessarily be right for you.  Develop your own style.

Openings:

The Openings Principles:

Control the center

Develop towards the center

Castle

Connect your rooks

How you play the opening is important, learning large amounts of theory is not - until you are playing at a very high level and even then its disputable. Also I agree strongly with the people who say that if you have a weakness in your game, you arent doing yourself any favours by trying to avoid these kind of positions. If you don't address your weaknesses it will limit your improvement later on.

Im a USCF A player, and i still use the opening principles.  I know a guy that is 2000, and still uses them.  So yea...someone rated 1700 can too.

Can I ask you why you don't like playing with Queens on the board? Sounds as though you've run into a few Queen traps, pins, forks and the like ... it happens to all of us!

Maybe you've been getting your Queen out too early? It's the most powerful piece, but also the most vulnerable in the first 10-15 moves.

Thing is, if Queens come off early (as in your quoted ongoing game) your opponent's King is usually then much less vulnerable, even if he's lost the right to castle. A well-placed Queen however can exert simultaneous pressure on several widely-spaced parts of the board; no other piece can do that. Maybe it'd be worth studying tactics involving Queens - the best way to cope with a problem is to grasp it!

Yeah I_am_Second, I don't have any temptation to study openings yet. A strong player told me early in my chess adventure to avoid wasting time learning opening theory and to just work on tactics and end game. I don't study often like I should but when I do it isn't openings. And I still think avoiding something is a bad plan OP but I'm a guy who challenges his weaknesses and always tries to fix his weakest link. I know some focus on their strengths so whatever fits you best. GL.

Agreed...up to 2000 i am finding that having a knowledge of openings doesnt matter.  Its when i start playing people that are over 2000 that my lack of opening knowledge becomes evident. 

What i do notice though is that the young "tactical" players come out swinging, and try to knock you out with a quick win.  I get comfy in my chair, weather the storm, and wait...wait for that one mistake that i know is coming, and then take over the game. 

Please don´t comment on the game cause is still taking place.

I write it down in red ....

Maybe is a good recommendation, checkers seems nice.

Im trying to develop my own style one without much pieces on the board . Sure its important to be faithful to yourself but a little help specially with ideas from other people cant hurt nobody. At least I think that.