You don't need an opening reportoire until you hit 2000 ELO - ture or false ?

Yes, and quite well so.  But I agree with leiph18 that up to a certain level you don't need a full repertoire. You should know what to do against 1.e4 and 1.d4, and have a reasonable set of answers on the most important replies against your own 1.e4 or 1.d4. On a sub 1900-2000 level you should not play flank openings or crap like London System, if you have any intention to improve.

Sounds reasonable to me. As one becomes very advanced, they need to learn and memorize more about openings.

There is not a bright line dichotomy at 2000. I agree with FM Rumo75, as a chess learner who is good at learning things.

Well yeah I don't think they're saying there is a big difference between a 1999 player and a 2000 player that would make one study openings and the other not. What are we supposed to do then, not suggest any number? Then you will have 1000 level players thinking their problem is they don't know something enough dozens of moves deep.

It's time management. If you have, say, 12 hours per week to spend on chess then you shouldn't spend 8 hours on opening theory. I just learn as I play online. I look it up as I go. If you are White and open with Queen's Gambit you should know what to do againt the Dutch Defense. If you want to win. Take what I say with a huge grain of salt. I am very inexperienced.

Rumo, you sound like me! It's amazing how agreeable people become when you get a title. I may just have to see what I can do about having someone purchase a CM title for me! 

Lajos Portisch, in How to Open a Chess Game

"It is illogical for one who has not earned his master title to ape the complicated variations played by, say, a world champion. After all, while the opening is indeed important in chess, it is still only one part of the game; victory can be found as well in the middlegame or endgame."

Studying theory is a waste of time if you're just going to make positional and tactical mistakes in the middlegame and endgame. For players that aren't yet approaching master level a broad general understanding of different openings and structures is more beneficial than a deep knowledge of particular openings. At least that's the advice I'm following.

Everyone who plays chess in Germany is member of a club and plays in one team league or the other.  Yes, this is nice. Even when you don't find the time to play tournaments, you get a real rated OTB game every 3-5 weeks.

I played in SK Franken  ( Schweinfurt )  for one season and thouroughly enjoyed it . I wish team play was more popular in the US .  We were in Landesliga Nord which I believe is 2 or 3 leagues below the top league ? 

A title is something to be very proud of. Do you think there aren't people who can beat up black belts due to the fact they have a title?

I think title isnt as indicative of chess strength as rating is .  An FM rated 2600 FIDE is stronger than a GM of 2350 . I once played an FM that was rated over 2500 and he was much stronger than some GMs I have played . 

Yes, it seems to be 4th German league, 3rd in the north is named Oberliga Nord. I've been playing 2nd league West for four years (KKS Köln), but the competition was really tough, with almost every team having a number of GMs and IMs in their ranks (one of them even had GMs on all 8 boards most of the time.) So as an amateur team we usually were unable to hold ourselves there for very long and played 3rd league most of the time.

The statement probably isn't much of an exaggeration, if at all.  I went from USCF 1000 strength to 1600 with a win and a draw against an expert and good results against club players without having studied openings or reading much analysis.  I began trying when I got to 1600, but it didn't matter, because the experts and A-Class players screwed up and took us out of book well before the end of my preparation --not that their screw-ups aided me much.  (You have to be so knowledgeable about your opening that you know why alternative moves are bad, and I did not, in these cases.)  Now, I did catch some bums in traps in one bizarre line I learned from each the Cambridge Springs and the white side of the Caro-Kann.  Those 5 wins (out a whole lot of games!) gave me about 40 rating points, I calculated.  That's many hours for 40 points that I probably lost in other games due to not knowing tactics.

The folks saying that you should know a little opening theory are confused and not being clear.  You should look at a couple of model games and maybe look very quickly through a "Starting Out" book of your preferred openings, just to get some ideas down, not to memorize moves.  My estimated strength recently went to 2000, and now my coach is jamming all kinds of theory into my head --and not just moves and move orders, but principles and ideas(!!!).

Most importantly, Grooten, who wrote Strategy for the Club Player, says that most IMs don't even really understand the openings that they are using.  A GM once commented that most of these IMs simply aren't familiar enough with deep studies on the relevant pawn structures, stock strategies, and other ideas to be said to truly "understand" and "know" the openings they use.  Folks like Esserman, who contribute to theory (in this case, Smith-Morra Gambit), are assuredly rare exceptions.

What I think Polgar is saying is what Heisman, Jerry Meyers, and many other coaches say: the vast majority of club games are decided by tactics, and virtually none are decided by openings, so why in the world study openings?!  Openings are important at high-level play, because those players are much less likely to lose advantages that they have out of the opening.  (Just make a graph of your games, move by move, based on Fritz' point assessment.  You'll see missing a tactic takes you from +3.01, or something, to maybe +.51.  The swings in the graphs you create will be sharp.  GM games show gradual swings in most cases, hence the importance of the opening.) 

The Cliffs Notes version of my opinion: Openings don't decide much at expert level and lower, but tactics, endgames, and strategy do, so don't waste your time on something that has minimal payoff.  Even with my rather absurd ability to memorize things, I did not waste my time on these, and it benefitted me, as my official USCF rating graph indicates.

It seems to me the latest fashion is to underestimate the value of knowing opening theory and deify "tactics".As if tactics were a separate entity from openings,as if openings were free of tactics!While I would agree that too strong an emphasis on opening theory at the expense of the other departments(midgame,endgame,tactics,position,etc.)cannot be a good idea,the notions that "chess is only tactics" and "opening study and knowledge a waste of time",I find rather hilarious..

If you lose to a tactic in the opening is it because you don't have enough opening knowledge?

false (i need to know openings)

unless you are talking about 2000 bullet..

false!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And yet Hikaru just said he played nearly perfect chess in the last few tournaments he's played in. Not sure if I believe him though :)

That's exactly what I'm doing now, working with a few openings to get comfortable with the openings and their typical pawn structures and plans. I wouldn't say that's the opposite, or that the two approaches are mutually exclusive.

Once I start to become comfortable with an opening, however, I move on to a different opening, or at least a different variation, to gain experience and familiarity in different types of positions. Of course openings are important and should be studied but for me I don't believe they're what's most important. They opening considerations of a GM playing in the US CC is a different matter entirely.

Hikaru said that he played like a moron in his win against Troff. He's generally right, perhaps a bit hyperbolic, but generally right about his judgement of his own play.