67 year old " It is a great time to study chess online but SO MANY TOOLS/COURSES AND SO LITTLE TIME"

Hi Pwstamps!
I'm 66 [and working] so I know the energy level issue well myself, especially after a work day. I also have an issue with my eyes esp in blitz games.
You will get 1001 suggestions. Here are mine for someone around 1400 USCF:
For tactics, I suggest starting with 'The Art of Checkmate' which is an eye opening book for checkmate tactics. After that book chess starts to be a lot more fun. After that you'll be strongly motivated to expand your tactical acumen with other books including puzzles [once you start crushing peers with attacks].
Endgames are something that all chess players need to study more. There are really 3 kinds of endgames: ones [called 'theoretical endgames'] where the way to win is by executing a known algorithm. These are super boring to learn but it is important to learn a few at the start and keep expanding. At 1400 I suggest: find a thin book that covers basics. Averbach has one. I like Barden's old book 'How to play the chess endgames'. Second comes complex, strategic endgames. These are a lot more interesting to study. For these Chernev's book 'Capablanca's greatest endgames' is a great place to start. After that there are several excellent next steps. Third comes endgame tactics which is hard to improve without first improving general tactics.
For openings, I think it is best to pick 2 as black , vs e4 and vs d4, and find an interesting GM who plays them. Then play thru his/her annotated games a lot , the full game, with the opening, resulting middlegame and endgame. Make notes including typical tactics in the games and , more importantly for us, tactics in the annotations [which will be simpler tactics that both players saw and avoided].
I keep a book of tactics from these GM games and from my games [those I missed] and go thru it off and on.
Of course, you need to play when you can with a serious mindset and when you find a gap in understanding isolate it and fix it.
-All just my ideas on how to improve- Bill

I agree with Bill that endgames are important, and often neglected. For me though, the most improvement was gained by focusing on the consequences of your opponent's moves (picked up from International Chess School) which is basically a form of prophylaxis. The game is played by two players, and focusing on the opponent's moves and ideas is a critical skill. This got me from 128 to 162 BCF in the good old days.

Thank you to all who took the time to answer my questions in this post and in previous posts

A special thanks to SummerBill for his detailed answer and I will start by answering him.

Yes, I am getting a lot of suggestions, and many are helpful. I own the book “The Art of Checkmate.”

In the 21st Century, there are so many to learn online (so many resources, so little time! ), that I prefer not to use paper books which I find somewhat boring. 21 pages on the Legal mate in the Art of Checkmate, which can only be done if your opponent makes a mistake, is overkill. Other chapters are covered by interactive books, more on this later.

Regarding endgames, at my level and others told me that it is true for them too, losses arrive before the end game, usually during the middle games. I know enough of basic endgame strategy not to make a full of myself. I will revisit when I reach the 1600-1800 level.

Yes, I have chosen openings:
- For white, I have chosen the Italian which fits my style
- For black, I have been studying the Caro Kann starting with the free course “Caro Kann” short and sweet on Chessable. I am not sure if it is going to be my black opening of choice. I used to like the Sicilian, but in the middle game it can get very complicated and with my 67 years old neurons, I can only think about 3 moves in advance (with difficulty ). As I have a double nationality French/American, I might try the French.
- I still need a response to d2 and c2, but in response to virtually all openings, I do OK using proven chess principles. It is amazing the number of people that use the Philidor of the Scandinavian at my level.

Most people do recommend following GM games. I have comments from Ryan121, Karpyan, and others. Thanks!

For former champions might choose Alekhine, Capablanca, and Karpov.

For new players, I might follow Alireza Firouzja and Fabiano Caruana. I also like to watch them live and can rout for both countries!

I think I have made a plan for studying. This response is already long, so more on this later and thank you again to all for your help and suggestions.

Pierre

Hi,

So much great advice here, I'm just dropping in to say I'd be happy to meet up with you sometime and review some of your games live, can use Lichess studies and Skype/Zoom, or some other communication platform you prefer, or Chess.com's classroom which has built in video/audio capabilities. You may find going through a game with another player and talking about the positions and why one idea is better than another and so forth can be more engaging, entertaining, and insightful, and I'd be happy to do that with you. You can message me if you're interested. :)

-Jordan

Jordan,
This is such a kind and warm proposal. I will send you a private message. :).