How far can you get without learning book openings?

Obviously I am a beginner, and I'm feeling quite overwhelmed by the idea of learning all those book opening moves.  I also suspect that 99 times out of 100 my opponent will not let me get too far without sabotaging what I'm trying to set up.  So my question is: have all reasonably good chess players diligently studied all those book openings, and how much difference does it really make?

You can get quite far by adhering to opening principles - develop pieces, occupy or otherwise stake a control to the center, bring your king to a safe place, for instance by castling, and keep your eyes open for opportunities. Later, study a couple of openings to use with your favored opening move as white, and a couple of black responses to common white opening moves.

At a lower rating level, people won't have openings prepared any far and won't always be able to find the counter if you end up leaving book even if they happen to know the book line. And if they do know lots of opening theory, play on - chances are they suck at middle and end games, or they wouldn't have a low rating.

Thanks, both of you.  Your answers are very helpful, and I'll keep plowing on.

Thanks again to everyone.  Does anyone have a suggestion for that 1 or 2 openings I should learn first?

French against 1.e4 is excellent ... I second the notion....BUT try something simpler/easier to grasp than the Sicilian (vs 1.e4) or Ruy, which can be quite intimidating in terms of the things you need to know.

Gambits like the Danish/Goring with 1.e4 and the 2..Nf6 Scandinavian for black are a great way to train your tactics as well ... I survived on them till I broke 1600 USCF.

In the stuff I have read, the common thread seems to be < 2000 OTB you don't need to do a lot of opening study. One book suggested focusing on 3 openings, One you play as White, one against 1. d4, and one against 1. e4 as Black.

Case in point ... got my tail handed to me by a 1900 USCF player a few tourneys ago ... in the post-mortem review, I asked him what line he plays against the c3 sicilian and it appeared that he deviated from theory on move 3-4.

Astonishing? not really ...  his overall chess playing skills (tactics, pawn/positional play, time management) were miles ahead of me and I thought the a## kicking was completely justified.  He took my c3 booked-up theory and told me where to shove it.

I will confess, I know next to zip about openings.  What with all the alternatives and transpositions I find it too much to remember past move 3 or 4 (in most cases).  That is why I like chess960 and off beat thematic touneys.  Opening Explorer either gets me thru the opening or gets me into trouble. This lack of knowledge probably costs me about 50~100 rating points. 

I would argue you could get to about 1900 without knowing more than a couple of simple systems

Just to confuse the issue, don't worry too much if you decide to play the Sicilian. I found that OTB most players always play an anti-Sicilian and don't enter the more demanding open lines. That being said, if you play correspondance, they always seem to play an open Sicilian since they have their handy database nearby.

Here's an experiment.  Using a dedicated chess computer such as Excalibur or Novag, switch the book off.  Usually the machine will play solid opening moves using general principles and a 4~6 ply search.  I guess the same thing could be done with any chess computer program.  While this might not impress strong players,  the openings would generally suffice below 1800~1900.

Wow!  What a lot of good advice I'm getting from this thread.  I plan to try out every suggestion made.  Thanks, everyone!

You'll subconciously know the opening moves without knowing the names as you play but it never hurts to memorize the full details

It's worth knowing some of the basic traps in openings. If you don't, your opponents will be glad to demonstrate them.

There are plenty of players on chess.com deliberately play non-book moves.  Moving pawns one square eg., 1...e6, 2...d6, 3...c6.  Such stategies have the advantage of throwing the opponent onto their own resources.  I am usually reduced to just developing my pieces, hoping that my lead in development will tell.   My games are usually decided by TATICS, ( the last mistake but one).

But what is "very far"?  I am sure there are countless examples of strong players being competitive while playing their own brand of non-book openings. 

to raise up your skill you need to know the basic ideas behind some openings and traps associated :D. Choose a repertoire of moves as B & W and try to play them as much as you can to understand the ups and downs of it.

In general if you play known openings you bassically have the chance to develop correctly and fast.

At the risk of adding analogies to this, consider a scenario where you're navigating through a new neighborhood to get to a party at a friend's ... your options to get there could be :

1- A step-by-step, turn-by-turn GPS device 

2- Spending time looking at a 2D (google maps) map of the whole area to get a feel for the location.

3- Using a compass and a "few" reference points / landmarks.

1) can prove disastrous if there's a deviation / change in scenario your device has not accounted for => rote "if A, then B, if C, then D" memorization. Even worse, your batteries died/ran out of charge.

2) would account for roadblocks and changes to the scenario....you'll always have another road mapped in your head to get to where you want to go ... basically you're working with ideas and not getting "deer in the headlights" desperate when things don't go according to plan.

3) Would still work ... but in terms of time, accuracy and efficiency, this may be slow and not ideal for competition. (being 3 hours late to a party!) 

I'd say 2) is practical and ideal, which would map in chess to  "knowing the theme and ideas" and incorporating good opening guidelines to figure the other things out. 

When you review the game later and discover a better theory move, this would be same as a friend telling you "oh, you should have taken 15th street, it's much quicker to get here!" You'll hopefully remember that the next time! :)

You can easily get to 2000+ FIDE OTB with very little opening knowledge (if you have sufficient talent to play a good middle-game). I know because I've done it.

I think the best solution to this dilemma is, learn opening "principles".  I think you will find over time that the best "book" openings follow them, or if not, address the goals of these principles indirectly.  

http://katar.weebly.com/black-vs-1e4.html

this guy has a great "thematic" repetoire against 1. e4 largely based on following opening chess principles, which is really instructive.  It just goes to show you how following these simple rules (at least one knight before bishops, center control, don't bring your queen out too early, get castled, connect your rooks, aim your rooks)  can take you far.  And they are seen at the highest levels of chess.