Crossing the Expert hump...

Hi everyone! 

I've decided to blog about my goal to reach master strength, which in the United States means having a rating of 2200+.  Currently I am at 2104 so it seems like a reasonable goal.  But many people stall out at the expert level (2000-2200) and so I thought perhaps by experiences may be helpful to others.  And of course, I welcome any advice or training tips, especially from masters :) 

Currently, I am focusing on completing one lesson a day on the chess mentor feature of chess.com.  I especially enjoy IM Jeremy Silman's courses.  So far, I feel they have helped me a lot.  Generally, in my chess background (I'm 36 yrs old and started at 19) I've always focused on the endgame and my progression up the rating levels was swift.  Though at the expert level, I've found I needed an opening repertoire so I have been working on that.  But generally now I have directed my training more towards the middlegame.  So studying general collections as well as books on pawn structures.  And once I develop my middlegame skills a little more, I plan to work harder on my openings and see where I am then. 

Ok, that's all for the first installment and I will write again soon.  I have a tournament this weekend.

Bye,

Grumpyguru