There is an ongoing debate here about whether free software is all one needs to study for chess, so I want to extend this debate a bit further. 

1. What software do you use if any?
2. How do you study for chess and for how long?
3. What do you focus on when you study?
4. And if you use software for analysis and preparation - how exactly do you do this?
5. how often do you play?
   
6. Would you like to give up chess?
7. Are you addicted?
   

My answers are as follows:

I use scid which allows me to keep my own game collection and also larger databases. It has opening tree and many of the features of chessbase + analysis.

I study by reading online or printed literature at my lesuire.  I don't really "study" but I probably spend from 1hr -3 hrs surfing the net chess related stuff and solving "problem of the day" here and on chessgames.com I find the articles on chess.com interesting many times.. I  sometimes grab a pgn of the game they are describing put into scid run anaylysis on variations not mentioned.  But this does not feel like "study" because one its during my work time, and two i feel i am just messing around surfing the net..

I am trying to focus more on middle game tactics and endgame though i find some articles on openings interesting.

I feed all my completed games into scid and run auto-annotate (if i have no time to look at it now). I set the time on each move to about 10s which seems sufficient.Then when I come back , i check to see where I go wrong. Junky games I just concentrate on tactics i mess up. Clearner correspondence games I try to ascertain if I went wrong with my plan -whether my opening moves made sense. I look at the opening tree and see how other games went with the same moves. 

But I will say I don't feel like I spend much time on chess, except currently making a few posts here.

I am mainly an on and off player. I play A LOT for a few months and then stop playing mainly because I dont like being addicted esp to blitz.

Chess Videos!

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/904029/chess_video_lectures_are_they_for_you.html?cat=19

• What software do you use if any? I use Fritz with the Shredder 11 engine.

• How do you study for chess and for how long? Videos work best for me! (see the link above ...)

• What do you focus on when you study? Mostly the opening, although I need to move to endgame soon.

• And if you use software for analysis and preparation - how exactly do you do this? I look through GM games mostly.

• how often do you play? Daily.

• Would you like to give up chess? Oh, no!

• Are you addicted? Majorly.

• What software do you use if any? Fritz to go over my games...

• How do you study for chess and for how long? Tactics, Opening prep (my repertoire is in chess position trainer, great program), mate patterns, study games of the greats, study positional play (from books), play OTB games with friends and talk about each and every move as its made (be sure to verbalize all the reasons for the move). other stuff but its late here...

• What do you focus on when you study? depends, i start off with tactics and try to do as many as i can until i hit a streak of missing the tactics, i generally quiz myself on an actual chess board over several opening lines,chess.com videos are good as long as you really pay attention and pause the video when instructed.

• And if you use software for analysis and preparation - how exactly do you do this? i enter my games into fritz and have fritz calculate each move.

• how often do you play? Daily.

• Would you like to give up chess? um what?

• Are you addicted? no, why? who wants to know? do you have any chess? no that im addicted or anything...