I'd say study the openings once you're comfortable with middlegame strategies, i.e. given a random position to study you can eventually work out a viable plan of action to proceed.
It's when you regularly play against people who get you into straight into middlegame positions where you somehow have no good play whatsoever, that you need to start looking at openings broadly. (Still not memorising lines yet.)
Until you are at least 1700 OTB, you shouldn't need much more than the advice on this page. It won't hurt to learn the names of various openings, and you will see some ideas playing over master games, which is always good training.
But if you want to be a strong player, you should know which R+2P vs R endings are drawn before you bother with the intricacies of opening theory.
Actually I wanted to say this before. :)
One method for learning openings is to compare your games against database games (Game Explorer for instance). This will not give you a detailed knowledge of the opening, but the repetition will eventually give you a feel for the typical lines, poor moves, etc.
I studied openings before everything else.
I can't imagine how this could actually have been called "studying" rather than more or less mindless memorization of lines of moves.
It is laughable when folks who barely started to play chess proceed to boldly talk about the "preparation of their opening repertoire", apparently desperately wanting to feel like they're in grandmaster league already by trying to ape high-level players.
Wow! Maybe I won't start any more threads if people are just going to vehemently trash other posters like this. What happened to being nice? Implying a person's actions are "mindless" and "laughable" based on reading one comment is way out of line.
By the way, I can imagine an intelligent person learning the rules, playing a few dozen games, getting a feel for not dropping pieces, and then immediately turning to a study of openings without it being a mindless activity. You can read about general opening principles of development, central control, king safety, etc, and then run through an opening like the Ruy Lopez: 1. e4...ah, I see, now the bishop and queen have open diagonals for development and a pawn is in the center and controlling the central square d5. 1...e5...I see, Black gets the same benefits. 2.Nf3...ok, now White is developing a piece toward the center, getting closer to castling kingside, and attacking Black's central pawn. 2...Nc6...ok, so Black protects the pawn while developing a piece (seems logical). 3.Bb5...ok, White is developing another piece, opening for kingside castling, and he is making an indirect threat on Black's pawn...etc.
What's wrong with that?
Of course basic endgames are essential. What good is winning your opponent's rook if you can't mate with king and rook vs. king. But if someone wants to study some openings first and then get around to basic endgames afterwards let's not bite their heads off. We're not all professionals or even competitive. Some of us are just trying to have fun.
chess_gg wrote:
I am reminded of Gulliver's travels when two kingdoms went to war. The reason is that they had quarreled about how to cook an egg.
One kingdom had a law that eggs must be hard boiled. The other kingdom found that disgusting and required all eggs to be soft boiled.
That's actually a very good analogy :-)
Actually to be pedantic it wasn't over whether eggs should be hard-boiled or soft-boiled but whether they should be opened at the big end or the little end. The two parties were called the "big endians" and the "little endians", obvious pun intended.
I heard that if you study them at 1:30pm CT you retain more information.
Just FYI, SCKleene: This is one the the perenial discussions and tends to get people reaching for thier morning stars and halbards. 
I answered because I tried to tailor the answer to your partcular situation and because you gave some indicator of your level and experience. In truth, it varies, and the variation is dramatic, as dramatic as the variance of ratings themselves. It hinges on an individual's ability to absorb the material with some modicum of understanding versus mere rote -- though rote too is an aspect. 
. Best of luck in your endeavors OP.
I studied openings before everything else.
I can't imagine how this could actually have been called "studying" rather than more or less mindless memorization of lines of moves.
It is laughable when folks who barely started to play chess proceed to boldly talk about the "preparation of their opening repertoire", apparently desperately wanting to feel like they're in grandmaster league already by trying to ape high-level players.
Wow! Maybe I won't start any more threads if people are just going to vehemently trash other posters like this. What happened to being nice? Implying a person's actions are "mindless" and "laughable" based on reading one comment is way out of line.
By the way, I can imagine an intelligent person learning the rules, playing a few dozen games, getting a feel for not dropping pieces, and then immediately turning to a study of openings without it being a mindless activity. You can read about general opening principles of development, central control, king safety, etc, and then run through an opening like the Ruy Lopez: 1. e4...ah, I see, now the bishop and queen have open diagonals for development and a pawn is in the center and controlling the central square d5. 1...e5...I see, Black gets the same benefits. 2.Nf3...ok, now White is developing a piece toward the center, getting closer to castling kingside, and attacking Black's central pawn. 2...Nc6...ok, so Black protects the pawn while developing a piece (seems logical). 3.Bb5...ok, White is developing another piece, opening for kingside castling, and he is making an indirect threat on Black's pawn...etc.
What's wrong with that?
Of course basic endgames are essential. What good is winning your opponent's rook if you can't mate with king and rook vs. king. But if someone wants to study some openings first and then get around to basic endgames afterwards let's not bite their heads off. We're not all professionals or even competitive. Some of us are just trying to have fun.
It wasn't trashing, because it wasn't directed at anyone in particular. Besides, the member whom I quoted is rather hardly a beginner anymore.
And yes, when folks who genuinely barely started to play chess proceed to boldly talk about the "preparation of their opening repertoire" (apparently making themselves feel good by parroting GMs), then It is laughable, don't you find? :)
The examples you gave is just going over a game with respect to adherence (or a possible lack thereof) to general opening guidelines and principles, which is all a beginner really needs, nothing wrong with that. But, for a beginner to buy books dedicated to specific openings, that contain possibly dozens of variations and hundreds of sidelines, certainly is farfetched, excessive, and pointless.
IMO after you understand some general things about the middle game... otherwise the moves wont make sense and you'll just be memorizing i.e. wasting the majority of your time.
Estragon's suggestion of 1700 OTB rating seems reasonable to me.
Before that the player benefits a lot from working on tactics, endgames, and good analysis habits like blunder checking.