Hergott's health problems in the early 2000s (decade) prevented further progress towards the Grandmaster title, and he has been virtually retired from serious play for several years, since 2002. Hergott did return to captain the victorious Ottawa team to a win in the Four Cities' Chess'n Math Association 20th Anniversary event, held in Kingston, 2005, where Ottawa defeated all-Master teams from Toronto, Montreal, and Quebec City. He won the RA Spring Open in March 2007, and served as live games commentator at the 2007 Canadian Open Chess Championship at Ottawa. Hergott became the chess columnist for the well-respected Ottawa Citizen newspaper in 1994, and has held that post since. His weekly Saturday column features an annotated game from either Canadian or international play, along with some news and insightful commentary. Hergott has been a successful writer for Canada's national chess magazine "Chess Canada", with his topics having included instruction by annotating amateur games, international tournament reports, and intensive master games analysis. Hergott is also a ranked Master in bridge and a rated expert in Scrabble. Hergott's chess style tends to be tactical in nature, sometimes exceptionally sharp. It encompasses a wide range of openings. He can play solidly, or tend on occasion towards the bizarre; this makes him difficult to prepare for. He sometimes favours unusual defences with the Black pieces; these have included the Modern Defence, Owen's Defence, and the English Defence. From the late 1980s, he had success against strong competition with a highly eccentric, virtually unbooked Modern Defence line, which has been also variously named the Dutch Benoni, the Dzindzhi-Indian (for Grandmaster Roman Dzindzichashvili), and the Beefeater; the line runs 1.d4 g6 2.c4 Bg7 3.Nc3 c5 4.d5 Bxc3+ 5.bxc3 f5!? With the White pieces, Hergott has mostly favoured the Closed openings. There is a selection of 550 of his games at chessbase.com.