2014 Chess season preview:

The 2014 chess season is about to begin. Five upcoming tournaments in the next few months. Rochester Chess Club January, Minnesota Winter, Rochester Winter, Minnesota Open, Rochester Chess Club March. A total of 23 rated games is possible.

The scholastic season also stretches over the next three months culminating in the Minnesota Scholastic tournament in March. The high school team I coach is lacking dedicated players. Only one high school student has shown up at the club meetings. I am bringing up some middle schools students who show some promise, and starting a chess club at the middle school that feeds the high school.

I don't expect to break 2000 rating this season. I need to do a lot of work to get to expert strength, but I know how to get there.

Expert strength should come for me by working on better understanding of endings and my openings. A lot of this is the drudgery of memorization. I need to keep my other skills sharp and my interest up by doing problems and playing. I also need to do better at strategic thinking on my opponents clock (too much time spent on  speculative precise tactical calculation)

I still need one or more breakthroughs in understanding to reach master level. I did very poorly on the quiz positions in Soltis's What It Takes to Become a Chess Master, so I think I will wait on his new book. Annotating and memorizing master games is my main approach here. I have a target of annotating three master games from the Kaufman repertoire a month, that I will include in the Following Kaufman ebook periodical. I should annotate and memorize one Grandmaster game a month from the "62 Most Instructive Games". I should finish "Capablanca's Best Endgames".