Haitus

Sorry for no posts... I ended up winning only one game in the MCC Class Championship. In June I played in the Open section with a draw against an expert, but that's it. Then July was spent away from the chessboard, mostly moving to a new house and dealing with all that entails. Well now I have (basically) my own study room which I'm planning on dedicating mostly to chess; no TV, radio, etc.

I want to really start working on my game now. Everything up until now has been haphazard, at best; a few problems here, some blitz games online, leafing through a book but not actually going over the variations, etc. I suppose I ought to hire a trainer, but I can't afford that now (I just bought a new house!), so we'll see how I do on my own. I've reached 1700 by myself, so I think there's hope.

My current plans are to spend about 40% on tactics using CT-ART, 40% on endgames, and the other 20% on going over annotated games, mostly in the openeings I play. I have an older Pachman book, "Practical Endings for the Tournament Player" which looks to be about the right combination of basics and game examples, then there's Dvoretsky's "Endgame Manual" for afterwards. The "Starting Out in..." series from Everyman publishing looks good for most of what I'll need to get started studying openings. They're basically a collection of a few annotated games per variation which is probably enough at my level. Then I can concentrate on those openings in my various games collections books.

Suggestions are welcome, especially from my higher rated friends (Derek..., Ilya... :) )

wish me luck.

-Matt