Back with New Year's Resolutions

I took a bit of a break from chess and blogging after Christmas, but I'm starting to get back into it. If you sent email in the last couple weeks, my apologies for the delay in responding.

I'm going to start the year with stating a few of my chess resolutions for the coming year, which will hopefully help keep me "on the wagon".

Things to do:

• Play slow games against Fritz to practice consistency

• Resume playing through master games. I'm thinking I should set a goal of at least one per day

• Work on tactics, especially tougher problems. Key references: Encyclopaedia of Chess Middlegames, Anthology of Chess Middlegames, Van Perlo's Endgame Tactics, Tal's Winning Chess Combinations, and CT-ART

• When tempted to play a few quick blitz games, substitute the above tactical exercises

• Work my way through Muller's Rook Endgame DVD, entering all the examples into ChessBase and playing the positions versus the computer

• Start analyzing my blitz games without a chess engine, and then check my analysis with a chess engine.

• Play more rated tournaments

Things not to do:

• Late-night ICC blitz benders

Now I need to get off my butt and get some instructive posts up. Thanks for your patience.