How strong tactically should I be before concentrating on openings / plans?

I decided to take the advice to heart that tactics are all that matter until you are really solid at them. So the only study I've been doing is tactics trainer and videos about tactics and mates. I'm currently in the 1700-1800 range on tactics trainer. However when I play, I don't have a good understanding of the main plans and ideas of the openings I play, I often don't have a clear plan or idea of what to do in the position, and feel I often get into worse positions where the tactics favour my opponent (because a strong position is what creates tactical oppurtunities).

Should I focus on studying opening theory and the plans of the openings I play or continue with tactics until say 2000 on tactics trainer?

Last summer I had bought both volumes of Boris Avrukh's Grunfeld Defense, but about a week later after flipping some pages I realized that most of the time I won't even play that because other people at my level don't know the theory. I decided to stop studying openings. Now, seeing at your ratings here on chess.com and comparing it to your tactics trainer rating I can either infer that either

a. You don't take internet chess as serious as OTB chess, (which most people dont)

b. You do take internet chess serious but your lack of positional understanding makes your rating what it is.

Now, I wouldn't study openings until let's say, 1900 rating. Most people that don't know the theory will deviate from the mainlines at about move 3-6 so all your book knowledge is gone and your preparation went to waste. Personally, I'm rated between 1900-2000 although many people say that if I try I could easily become 2100, but the only opening that I've studied is the Dragon because about 8/10 people in my region play it so I have to be prepared for it. 

Now, you're saying that you don't have a good understanding of the position. In that case, you should probably concentrate in positional play. That includes from color complexes to maneuverability and prophylaxis. Once you get to start to get a feel for the position your pieces will naturally go to their optimum squares and thus the tactics will come into place. But based on what you said, your tactics is not the problem, it's the positional understanding. 

Not study openings at all is just as illogical as study each sideline until 30th move. Your opening knowledge should progress with your skill, I think. Learn some main lines, get main ideas, choose preferred moves - that'll make you chess a bit better. Then just go deeper along with becoming stronger...

Actually not studying openings at all isn't really a bad idea. Consider chess engines without an opening book. They tend to drop about 200 points in rating, but their opening books include up to 30 move sidelines. The same applies to humans. Say there's a guy rated 1800. If he learned an engines opening book his rating will likely go up about 200-300 points, but learning 2 or 3 mainlines will likely not make a difference ratingwise. Therefore we can safely assume that knowing "some mainlines" isn't going to make a noticeable difference to not knowing openings because it won't help you punish your opponent for a bad move in the opening until you actually learn lots of opening theory. 

Besides, Most games at intermediate level/pre-master level are going to be solved in the middlegame, where someone made a noticeable blunder, like leaving an unprotected king, or sacrificing a piece where there is no possible attack, and not because they went into an inferior position in the opening. 

What you say makes sense. But knowing an opening helps a) not to get into opening trap b) get more or less playable middlegame c) not to spend time to make all known moves. Moreover, until you don't play like engine - each move you do by yourself is a place for mistake, while well-analized main line isn't one for sure

Go find books that explain how to plan like 'Reassess your chess' by Silman, books which have heavy annotations (like Logical chess move by move' the Nunn version) or if you a book about chess strategy...they'll serve you in EVERY game/

Play standard games you don't have time in bullet games to make a plan that's why you have trouble

I never said it didn't. I'm just saying that studying openings just to get a slightly better position is a waste of time considering that you could be using that time actually learning how to maneuver the pieces into the correct squares, how to make the pieces work together in harmony, how to stop an attack before he's able to implement it, which is much more important. Personally, I don't have an opening as White, but it's really not important because intermediate/pre-master opponents don't know how to punish "out of book" moves. And it's not going to be necessary until probably when playing against strong FMs...

Attempt to find book move over the board is kinda waste of time too. Amateur level opening studying, on the other hand, can't take much time, and that means it pays off)

"Personally, I don't have an opening as White, but it's really not important because intermediate/pre-master opponents don't know how to punish "out of book" moves. And it's not going to be necessary until probably when playing against strong FMs..."

Sorry, I disagree. People will punish out of book moves if the move allows a trap or goes againist one of the main ideas in an opening. Often particular openings have better squares for spcific pieces, and there are set ups that are favored, of course depending on your opponent's play and move order. There are subvariations which are played at various levels, but deviating from the book widely will often get punished by better players as the person making those moves is probably not aware of the general strategy and positions he/she should be aiming for in those positions.

For example, I always play the closed sicilian as white. I avoid a lot of the heavily studied sharper Sicilian lines as well as move to positions I am familiar with and can often gain advantages with, even when playing stronger opposing players.

You people aren't taking into account that you learn from your mistakes. Say you fall into an opening trap, now you know for next time, and you learned that without studying opening theory. Same appplies for getting an inferior position. Say you developed a Knight to c3 in a game where the position demanded a Knight on d2. You will obviously see that during the course of the game and you will learn from those mistakes. It's really not necessary to study opening theory as you will acquire that through experience. 

Study all phases of the game, with the least amount of time on openings.

I'm not bothering with openings yet. Basic principles and past experiences are what gets me through still.

I will quote another thread I posted in, to help answer your question...

ParadoxOfNone 11 days ago · Quote ·Edit·Delete · #15

The only thing you have to watch out for, if you decide a bad strategy is better than none at all is that, it will fail to good tactics. That is why tactics are so important. In fact, the best strategy I find, is to make sure that you don't fail to your opponent's tactics, while trying to look for tactics yourself, instead of trying to plan a strategy, that may be forcibly changed by your opponent. You will not be able to accomplish this, unless you are proficient in tactics. In looking for your opponents' threats, you might even see the best chances you have, in spite of the original plan you thought might work.

Consider this, Tigran Petrosian (former WC) was the hardest player to win against historically. He did this by knowing his opponents' potential threats and undermining them. That was his plan entirely. Once he got an advantage, after you made a mistake, the path needed to be taken to victory became clear. He didn't have to guess ahead of time at what his strategy should be for 20 different openings/defenses to be good. Using the understanding of tactics, it gave him a strategy for every game situation.

Also consider that Mikhail Tal (former WC) at times played unsound sacrifices and strategies but, he was so good at tactics, complicating positions and confusing his opponents that, he still often crushed them with tactics.

There is also an old  joke between Russian masters from those players' era. If Tal makes a sacrfice against you, accept it and pray. If Petrosian sacrifices against you, there is no need to do anything else but, resign...

PS-(added to OP)...engines play almost exclusively tactical and their Elo's are far higher than ours.

...as the old saying goes, "if you can't beat them, you might as well join them"....

For the record, when playing blitz, Petrosian played extremely aggressively, with lots of fireworks, which are rarely seen in his normal games.

Which were more tactical in nature surely... thanks for thip pfren...

Call_Me_Loser is right... in blitz I recommend 1.d3 2.Kd2 3.Qe1 4.Kd1

almost regardless of opponent moves, because it disrespects opponent. Only I would say 2200 in Tactics Trainer.

It's not like a 1300 or 1500 OTB player is going to remember half the book moves anyway, and the other player will rarely play into mainlines.. When you get above 2000 otb you can start to develop a better understanding for your openings, but still the games will deviate from mainlines more often than not.. 

Whatever you do in chess, if you practice sincerely, ie out of your comfort zone, you will make progress. It sounds like OP could benefit from looking at masters playing the openings he plays, or for understanding purposes, some audio/youtube commentary could be even better. 

While I don't think people need to worry about openings that much below 2000 or even 2200, they should probably start to learn a few ideas and strategies for the opening as soon as they start to get positions they recognize from previous games..

Simply, you attention should be concentrated more on opening  first, then tactics; but tactics is more sailent of all. practice, practise, tactics until you can easily spot candidate moves with facile. Without improving your opening,your opponent will be the one spoting your feeble moves and boom!game is mover.Incidentally, always have a dream position in which you would like your pieces to be implanted. once's that has been accomplished, make an attempt to do so, but at the same time watch out for you opponent treat as well-He /she is also endeavoring to divet your plans away.

5 problems a day :)