studying Endgame first, or Openings.

I would say one has to be clear about what they want: mastery in chess and no hook-ups and obsessing about sex, drugs or alcohol or sex and obsessing about hook-ups, drugs or alcohol and what to wear and what is the projected image of oneself and no chess mastery.

  On a trivial note, even the man you quoted agreed to what you call my notion of chess mastery, that is Nunn, not that I need someone’s approval for an obvious fact. Namely, that the best way to tackle a complex opening like Sicilian is to study and play its main lines. In addition to that, I’m also saying that playing the most complex openings helps most.

So two factors: the most complex openings and the most complex lines in those most complex openings. And those lines are usually, because of the amount of work devoted to them, because they’ve been used in most games, the most studied, and so there are the most number of ideas to be grasped and mastered.

 There are no shortcuts to chess mastery.

I am certainly not addressing the players who are somewhat convinced they have to start with 1. f3...

 As for knowing all the forced mates in 2, 3 and 4, these are part of the ABC of any chess player.

And hope is futile in chess: you’re either prepared and confident in that preparation, or not and then hope won’t get one very far. Either way, hope is useless.

 Yet most beginners and even more advanced players are playing chess like they live their life: making a move and pray to god it’s the best. In life it works, most of the time, because the chances to get caught making a blunder are sometimes very small. How many times did one violate the traffic laws before eventually getting a ticket? 

 But in chess, against a decent player one’s blunders don’t go unpunished. So the thinking in chess must undergo a modification from the everyday thinking, and being aware of the distinction helps accelerating its happening.

I don't see any reason for anyone to be obliged to be clear about whether or not they want the troy7915 notion of chess mastery. You can always ask if you care.

Again, the man from your own quote agreed it’s the best way to approach a complex opening like Sicilian, so I don’t know why you keep referring to it as ‘troy’s notion’...

For the moment, I see no reason to believe that GM John Nunn agreed with the troy7915 notion of chess mastery.

For the moment, I see no reason to take a GM John Nunn comment on the Sicilian as a GM John Nunn comment on chess mastery.

For the moment, I don't see a GM John Nunn comment on "the best way to tackle" the Sicilian. He referred to testing the Sicilian, but he seemed to me to recognize the possibility that it can make sense for various factors to influence one's choice of approach to tackling.

Is that of any concern to someone who is not seeking the troy7915 notion of chess mastery?

What percentage of beginners have you encountered? What sort of observation enabled you to conclude that a player was praying to god that a move was the best?

"... I want to talk about how to build an opening repertoire that matches your rating goals in chess. ... If your goals in chess are relatively modest, (i.e- no higher than 2200), you can play many less conventional openings and get away with it. ... [If your goals are to get up to 1800, pick] openings based on enjoyment. ... You can play stuff that’s completely unsound because the large majority of sub 2000 players won’t be able to take advantage of your dubious opening choices. ..." - IM Greg Shahade (2012)

http://www.uschess.org/content/view/11634/658

It is a pattern of thinking. A beginner and not only ( if they’re not aware of it), simply allow a winning reply to their last move, at any stage of the game. Just go through the thousands of games played here by various players, if you cannot directly see the pattern in the absence of any game, and see for yourself.

 So when they switch to chess their old thinking patterns persist, as the person is the same. And because their thinking doesn’t adapt quickly enough—it takes years without being aware of the problem—they make a move without calculating all the major opponent’s replies. Just like in life, they are hoping for the best case-scenario, so they are inclined to consider the most favorable outcomes, just like in life. There, one may use the carpool lane hoping no one will notice, or engage in a bank robbery, imagining a life full of beer and women on the coast of Mexico.

 And in chess, they consider the most favorable move to them, and so hope for a dreamy scenario in which they win in a few moves. Kasparov himself did this once as a kid, when playing his father, and got away with it and won. It is normal at that stage.

 So basically, the novice fails to consider first and foremost the most dangerous replies by the opponent, at every single move. Because you forget once to do this and all the careful work from the previous moves is gone. But a novice gets tired of thinking too much rather quickly, and soon he falls back on their habit of not consider the most dangerous replies by the opponent, along with their survival move, before they make a move, not after, which is too late, obviously.

  Interestingly enough, Carlsen was once asked after a blitz with weak players, but with the time running even when he was away from the board (!) if he made certain moves considering the level of his opponents, implying whether or not he made certain moves just to trap an opponent, which might have been refuted easily by a stronger opponent. And he replied that he tried to stay true to the game and play regardless of the level of his opponents.

 Bingo! It cannot be any other way. Strong players do not alter that process of pragmatic thinking, be it in practice, blitz with weak players or World Championship games.

Can you give us a specific example where you feel that you can see (from a game) that a player is hoping for the best case-scenario?

Of course, if you play 1. e4 you have to have a way to tackle the Sicilian, any way fir that matter.

 But clearly, settling for Alapin won’t make you a Sicilian expert. For modest aspirations, any tackling will do. Sveshnikov played hundreds of games in Alapin and the original Grand Prix Attack. But Sveshnikov never came close to challenging the title: an easy way out which brought him some monetary rewards, but he failed in regards to at least trying to be the best of the best. He settled for less, and this is exactly what Nunn had in mind when he offered those ‘side doors’: players who will settle for less.

So your comments don't apply to those who are willing to settle for less than the best of the best?

I know a thousand people have made their opinions on this topic known, but I figured I'd add my own perspective to the chorus.

Most people say study endgames first, and, in my opinion, that's the best place to start. You need to feel comfortable converting an advantage. It won't be how most of a beginners games are decided (that would be tactics), but it will accelerate your improvement more than any other area.

That being said, it's important to understand this doesn't mean master endgames before moving on to other things. Studying endgames can give you insight into the opening, studying openings can help you with tactics, tactics can help you convert endgames, and so on and so forth. You need to improve your understanding and your vision, and every area of study works towards improving them.

TLDR: Start with endgames, but don't let your study habits become overly one-dimensional.

  Any game which ended in a blunder in less than 20 moves. But really, follow the logic of what was said: most lower-rated players do not consider the most dangerous reply from the opponent, their reply to it, and so on until the position is somewhat quiet. They consider some replies, but not the most dangerous ones, and certainly not their reply in response to those replies. And the root lies in everyday thinking, in which the variants are so huge, that one actually gets away with many ‘inaccuracies’, even outright blunders. But not in chess, not against a decent player.

Openings should be studied first because it's absolutely immensely rare for beginners to make it to the endgame. Beginner games often conclude at the end of the opening or early middlegame, especially against highly-aggressive pros.

 Of course not, I am not interested in anybody who aspires to be mediocre, in any field, not just in chess.

Actually, mistakes made in the opening can also be fatal. For example, besides the Scholar's Mate, a major screw-up in development and controlling the center can cripple your pieces to the point where your king is stuck in an open center with enemy rooks ready to rain hell upon him, your queen is trapped, and your minor pieces are paralyzed.

Besides, if your opponent plays an effective opening that you have no idea about, you can blunder so badly that decent players would resign at that point.
There are lots of openings that directly punish greed for material, a habit beginners tend to exhibit once they start getting the hang of chess, such as Accepted variations of the Queen's Gambit, Reti Gambit, Old Benoni Defense, Lasker Trap, etc.