Frank,
I am not an advanced player (just over 1500) but the following urls /
articles etc may be of help.
Chessville http://www.chessville.com/index.html
There are some articles written of players of a variety of strengths which
include study materials and the order in which you should study them. try
the home page then Instruction tab and follow to General instruction and
advice followed by the path to improvment and also the article suggestions
for improving your play. They also have an excellent forum where you will
get serious answers to questions from some very experienced players. GM
Nigel Davies also has a question and answer column on the site.
Many coaches will advise you to play 1 long game a week rather than several
short games. This way you can build a proper repertoire of how you approach
a game, select your candidate move look at your opponents possible replies
etc. To get the games I would suggest joining the Online Chess league. You
play on a team of usually 6 players with a 4 player line up each week. This
allows you to take a week off as there will always be 2 players not playing.
Each tournament usually lasts about 8wks and the sections are U1500 U1800
and OPEN. The games are run through a cheat detection system and suspect
games are also examined by a National master. As a result we have minimal
cheating in the league and you can be assured you have the best chances of
online play against a person rather than a computer cheat that you are
likely to get anywhere on the internet. Time controls are 60min 15sec
increments and we play on both FICS and ICC. Further details at the url
below,
Hope this helps,
John.
Online Chess League : http://www.chessville.com/ocl/index.htm
"FRANK" wrote in message
...
Greetings all,

I have returned to chess after many years and would like to go beyond just
a
casual club player. My question to those who are experienced competitive
players is, what is the best way to study. I have bought a library of
chess
books and CD ROM'S. Many of them are on the Openings that I would like to
learn. I feel I have a sufficient amount of Middle Game and Strategy
materials to get me through, and a small, but good source of End Game
materials. The majority of my chess materials however are on Tactics.

I guess my second part of the question is: In what order (or priority)
should I go about learning the game? I keep hearing the maxim, "Tactics,
tactics, tactics." So I chose that to study first and foremost. I am
thinking I should then learn the End Game after brushing up on my Tactics.
I am not sure if that is the "right" order, but it seems natural to me.
From here I am not sure which to study next. Do I continue to go in
"reverse" order and study the Middle Game, or concentrate more on Opening
Theory.

What is the best way to develop Chess Knowledge? Does it matter? Any
recommendations from advanced players would be appreciated.

-Frank