chess study question

I was wondering people's opinions in regards to studying opening theory.  I have heard from multiple people that studying openings early on is not a good idea.  For the simple reason that myself, for example, am currently a 1484 player on chess.com.  And when I play against players at my level, many aren't going to be playing perfect book moves in the opening.  So therefore there is no point in me memorizing extensive opening variations. I have gone over mainline moves for a couple different openings but nothing really beyond that. Is this line of thinking correct? Should I continuing to be studying tactics, positional concepts and endgames for now?  At what point should I start to be studying openings more thoroughly?  Or is my entire logic completely wrong?

You should know all the main opening variations 15 moves deep before you ever play a game of chess.

Thanks estragon. I feel a little funny calling you estragon lol. Yea I disagree scott. Memorizing openings isn't a good idea. I'll try that estragon. I usually play e4 and I like the Sicilian for black. I've gone through about 8-10 main line moves for e4 for white and c5 for black. If white plays d4 I usually play nf6. I'll give that a try looking thru games thanks again

Further extra credit: Becket wrote Endgame, a play so-named for the chess phase that has just a few pieces (characters) remaining.

P.S. Yes I know about pawn-heavy rook endings. Take it up with Becket.

What I've been doing to learn openings is mainly studying games. I go on chessgames.com, browse through recent tournaments (such as tal memorial, tata steel, world championships and candidates tournaments, etc, from 2010-2012). Then when I find a game that I like in the opening I'm studying, I use chessgames.com's find similar games feature. Then I can go through the various lines that have been played and what kind of positions result.

As an example, I was studying the Neo-Grunfeld when I came across this game, and was alerted to many innaccuracies in my opening repetouire:

Game:

As you can see, without my knowledge of the opening I failed to capitalize on my opponents innaccuracies (and this was 40/2 + 1 SD time control). You don't need to memorize lines, but finding a few key games and some variations from the lines they played helps a lot.

well said dargone.  Do you take lessons with him in person or through skype?

Dargone, that's exactly what I do. Sadly, I believe that with better opening preparation I could have scored much better than I did at the Chicago Open, my first major tournament.

I scored +1 -2 =4 in the U1900 section, not a bad result as my USCF is around 1550 (although I am underated - not just saying this, when I started 7 months ago I was a 694, and no matter how much I improve it takes a while to gain 1000+ rating points)

Both losses were due to poor opening preparation, but not poorly memorized lines. I had learned the lines from books and opening explorers, without looking at any real games. As a result I ended up playing 15 moves of theory in a ragozin before ending up in a terrible position with weak light squares. I didn't understand white's plan of center expansion with his extra center pawn and kingside attack, while black's positional plans of attacking the c3 pawn and gaining queenside counterplay destroyed me. In the second loss I messed up my move order in a sharp meran semi slav and came under a crushing attack that ended in a bishop sac.

Some of the draws I played poorly in the opening too, such as the game above where I should have had an easy advantage as black, or in the queen's gambit declined tarkatower variation, where I didn't realize that the c5 break was weaker than it lost because Qa3 pins the pawn. I thought I was lost the entire game if at any point he played c5, but luckily he knew the idea so he didn't. Even in the game I won I messed up my opening in a grunfeld, but I managed to save a lost ending.

In short, I agree that the best way to learn openings is through analysis of your own games and similar games, but sometimes you need to do more preparation for a bigger tournament (so you don't end up regretting not preparing like I do). I also extremely recommend looking at full games, not just scoring percentages in databases, so you don't reach a lost position 5 moves after you get out of theory.

Some of the openings were new, but mostly because of what my opponents played. I have played the queen's gambit since I started chess, but I believe this was the first time anyone had played the tarkatower variation against me. In addition while frequently facing the ragozin in scholastic tournaments, the only people who ever played it simply thought "I want to double his pawns", and generally led to easy wins, as they lacked most knowledge of the opening. While I am used to the grunfeld I generally have trouble with e3 lines, such as the one played, and I'm not that certain of most of the neo-grunfeld positions, which I get less often.

Sadly, while some of the games were complete draws, a few games I had an advantageous ending that I failed to convert. I was lucky to win a game : in the game I won at one point in the ending it was -3 on my engine, I knew it too and was extremely frusterated and upset, on the verge of resigning.

I need more ending knowledge too, I went into a R+B vs R+N ending because his pawns were on the color of my bishop, and there were pawns on both sides. Within a few moves I realized I should have trusted in the rook ending for a draw as my bishop was forced passively to the back rank and my rook ended up practically trapped. I also ended up with an undefensable pawn stuck on b7.

I looked up heismans rates they're pretty steep, at least for me right now.