Chess has proved to be the journey of my lifetime. I've been playing this fantastic game for forty-five years. Yes, this journey began way back in the 1970's. Shortly after the turn of the century, I was fortunate to have lessons with a local IM for three years. Recently, I found another IM brave enough to coach me.

Both rekindled my love of the game and inspired me to push the boundaries of what's possible for a fossil like me. When I have the time and means, I will work on seeing if I can earn a title. Until I can play in tournaments, I'm learning how to train like a professional chess player.

I was fortunate to spend almost three years writing blog posts for chess websites—the perfect job for this chess addict. If I found the right keywords, I could write about parts of the game I wanted to work on. There are few things better than getting paid while improving your game.

This year is about getting my opening repertoire sorted once and for all. To break this up, I will improve my middle and endgame play. It's evaluating the endgame and formulating a strategy I find most challenging.

I'm hoping the more I learn about middlegames, the fewer crazy sacrifices I'll need to play to win games. I want to win a calm positional match to know what it feels like. My first instinct now is to look for sacrifices, and this is becoming a reflex. My tendency to play them based solely on feel without backing them up with calculation concerns me. Of course, there's nothing like being down material to focus the mind and make chess interesting.

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