Sure if you play a bad opening, you'll get problems. Especially if it's just a one trick pony. When I say dubious opening I mean the kind top grandmasters rarel

Sure if you play a bad opening, you'll get problems. Especially if it's just a one trick pony. When I say dubious opening I mean the kind top grandmasters rarely play. I play the Modern Benoni with black. Sure it's dubious and white can get a pretty big advantage. But it's an opening with absolutely endless complexity in terms of the middle games that can arise. It's sharp, difficult to play for both sides, and I enjoy these positions and have played them for years now, with probably thousands of blitz games in the Benoni, and quite a few classical tournament games under my belt. I think all in all I've memorised maybe two or three lines back when I started playing it. The rest is all just my experience and intuition for the various set ups. And guess what, the lines I memorised? They hardly ever occur, because my white opponents never know them and they're the kond of thing you're not gonna find over the board, which is why I memorised them. And I win most of my games in the modern benoni at the 1800 FIDE level. Point is memorisation is pointless. The way to study an opening is to understand the ideas, possible endgames, tactical and various structures that can arise.