Why don't chess openings matter?

"Every now and then someone advances the idea that one may gain success in chess by using shortcuts. 'Chess is 99% tactics' - proclaims one expert, suggesting that strategic understanding is overrated; 'Improvement in chess is all about opening knowledge' - declares another. A third self-appointed authority asserts that a thorough knowledge of endings is the key to becoming a master; while his expert-friend is puzzled by the mere thought that a player can achieve anything at all without championing pawn structures.
To me, such statements seem futile. You can't hope to gain mastery of any subject by specializing in only parts of it. ..." - FM Amatzia Avni (2008)
"Yes, you can easily become a master. All you need to do is some serious, focused work on your play.
That 'chess is 99% tactics and blah-blah' thing is crap. Chess is several things (opening, endgame, middlegame strategy, positional play, tactics, psychology, time management...) which should be treated properly as a whole. getting just one element of lay and working exclusively on it is of very doubtful value, and at worst it may well turn out being a waste of time." - IM pfren (August 21, 2017)
"If you want to improve in classical ( slow ) chess you have to work on all 3 phases of the game . ..." - NM Reb (August 30, 2017)

"... This book is the first volume in a series of manuals designed for players who are building the foundations of their chess knowledge. The reader will receive the necessary basic knowledge in six areas of the game - tactcs, positional play, strategy, the calculation of variations, the opening and the endgame. ... To make the book entertaining and varied, I have mixed up these different areas, ..." - GM Artur Yusupov
"... A remark like 'games are rarely decided in the opening' does not really do justice to the issue. ... even if an initial opening advantage gets spoiled by subsequent mistakes, this doesn't render it meaningless. In the long run, having the advantage out of the opening will bring you better results. Maybe this warning against the study of openings especially focuses on 'merely learning moves'. But almost all opening books and DVD's give ample attention to general plans and developing schemes, typical tactics, whole games, and so on. ..." - IM Willy Hendriks (2012)

Here's the problem:

No matter how many opening moves you memorize, at some point in the game, you're going to have to think for yourself.  And knowing how to play once you have to think for yourself is more important that the number of moves that are played before you have to think for yourself, unless your opponent plays into a line that losiesa lot of material. 

Most opening lines don't end at a won position. They end at a slight edge for one player. 

I play the dragon, and it is incredibly common to play someone who bangs out 10, 12, 15 moves of GM-approved opening theory, emerge with a small advantage ... and then throw it all away on the very first move where they have to think for themselves. I'm not exaggerating. 

If theory says white is better because his attack is a little bit stronger and faster, then all it takes is one slightly sub-optimal move and the advantage is now black's. And if I'm a little bit better at attacking, that's all I need. 

Is something only worthwhile if it enables one to avoid having to think for oneself?

About two days ago, in another thread, we were looking at an IM John Watson comment: "... The simple fact is that the player who is familiar with a Dragon variation and knows it by heart will almost always beat the opponent who doesn't. For one thing, it took untold hours of home study and computer analysis to work out most of the Dragon positions that are now part of theory, so the knowledgeable player will benefit from the specific results of that work. On top of that, many of the best Dragon moves are counterintuitive and not the choice that you would make under time constraints. ..."

Does this sort of thing suggest ignoring opening study altogether? It seems to me that the main point is to pay attention to comments like that of GM John Nunn: "... I feel that the main reasons to buy an opening book are to give a good overview of the opening, and to explain general plans and ideas. ..."

I do not know what "same player" you are referring to, but I imagine that, when facing 1 b3, many players are compelled to think for themselves at an earlier point than what is usual for them.

HotspurJr, IM John Watson, and GM John Nunn were mentioned in post #50. I can not write authoritatively about what any of them do when facing 1 b3.

Sure. I mean, just staying on the subject of the dragon, having read through a ton of games featuring the Rxc3 sacrifice, it's definitely something I'm primed to look for. 

But a lot of the "general plans and ideas" that you need to know are things that apply to all openings: tactics, attacking technique, fighting for the center, etc. 

In any event, I was not advocating never reading an open book. I was responding to the OP's question about why he can't just memorize opening moves and play like a GM.  I didn't realize the thread was quite so long when I posted, though, so I understand if it perhaps seems like I was responding to something else. 

The quotes in post #21 seem to me to be worthy of attention.

• LawAndOrderKing wrote:

  ... I think many people misunderstand that learning the opening doesn't mean spamming/and memorizing thousands of variation/subvariations.

  It means learning opening principles, the resulting middlegames/endgames/pawn structures, tactics, traps, strategies etc. After some time there is nothing wrong with looking at some lines.

  I just look at one line and learn the first 3-5 moves and then test it in blitz/bullet. After losing/winning I analyze my mistakes. ...

I get the impression that your thinking is similar to the post #21 quotes.

"... Overall, I would advise most players to stick to a fairly limited range of openings, and not to worry about learning too much by heart. ..." - FM Steve Giddins (2008)
"... the average player only needs to know a limited amount about the openings he plays. Providing he understands the main aims of the opening, a few typical plans and a handful of basic variations, that is enough. ..." - FM Steve Giddins (2008)

My impression is that most participants have approximately the same view as the post #21 quotes.

If u like to study the opening, do that. The studying is 100 times better than doing nothing.

Black openings matter. White openings... not so much.