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How to prepare for a Tournament

15 minutes is way too little time for keeping record IMO.
If it's your first OTB tournament, just enjoy the experience. The sensation and perspective of moving real pieces can be distracting enough if you're mostly used to comp chess. Some have real problems with switching actually, and their performance suffers.
Thanks for the advices Moliik and Sollerman!! I will definately enjoy the experience ;-)
You can try write down your moves in 15+0 games on lichess. You will see if you are able to focus on game and to handle time trouble.
Hi!
I just came back from the Tournament and I have to say... even it was smaller than I thought (16 players, 7 rounds, swiss sistem) and I ended up the last one (BUT! with 1 point XD)... I enjoyed the experience like a little kid on Christmas XD and I'm looking fordward to repeat it again.

As far as I remember (I didn't recorded the games) my first 3 games (3 of them with black: 2 french defense, 1 nimzo-indian) were lamentable... lot of nerves, I was feeling cold in the room, mistakes and blunders... but I got the sign where I have to work/study more: discovered checks and discovered attacks. If online sometimes is hard to see them, OTB it's even worse!! I was feeling completely blind...

Break time... some talking... one of the stronger players (he ended up 3rd) told me "you just play too risky".

So 4th game... finally white, my well known Colle-Zukertort... I thought I had a winning attack but I decided not to play "too risky" and bring more defenders to my kingside, afterwards my opponent bring his knight to attack, freeing a diagonal for his queen and my planned attack was gone forever... he pinned one of my pieces, I overreacted and I ended up blundering my Queen... disaster XD

And the 5ht one, white again, Colle-Zukertort again... an opening mistake and 2 pawns down... but, out of nowhere (and unintentionally XD, I have to admit that...) I attacked one of my opponents rooks with my bishop and at the same time made a discovered attack to one of his bishops (which was unprotected) with my queen. My opponent panicked and I started a "too risky" and deathful attack (with a rook sacrifice included), he resigned. First win! yeah!

The last 2 games (one with white and the other with black: colle-zukertort and french defense) I played against two (lower than the rest) rated players (they both had only 1 point as me) and both of them were a painful loss on time even being in a winning position... in one of them I was even a rook up but I couldn't find (nerves) the mating combination.

Sorry if I make a huge story of that... but I really enjoyed it and I will encourage anyone who has the chance to play an OTB tournament no matter the rating one has.

Regards and have fun!

Mike
Great to hear. ^^ OTB is where it's at IHMO. The atmosphere and tension is difficult to convey, but it's the equivalent of playing poker OTB compared to playing it on the internet.

I would want to reiterate the slightly different skill-set needed for playing OTB. Psychology, body language and ability to control ones emotions and the ability to shut out distractions becomes part of the equation (to a greater degree). Just the way you move pieces can communicate information about your inner state of mind.
Instinctively we trust our opponent. This can work both ways: instilling over confidence can be just as effective as instilling doubt.
#24

Nice tourney report Mike ! :)

I bet that the more experienced you get with otb tourneys, the easier it will be.

I have played in otb weekend tourneys, and I found them to be too exhausting (2 to 3 games per day, friday, saturday, sunday).
I preferred playing in tourneys with one game per day, and having time to look around at other games, and also "digesting" the games that were played, analysing and recovering from losses or unpredicted draws.

"Playing too risky" can be a subjective statement.

Chess players who do not like short draws, like myself, will have to take some risks.

In fact, you might find out that some GMs do sometimes take risks to win against lower rated chess players (e.g. GM Tiviakov mentioned that in some opening preparation article).

It is probably more likely that (as you wrote) your tactics still need improving (in open positions it is more likely to lose a game by tactics because of an uncovered piece. Simply work on that.) as well as otb chess experience, and time trouble management, as well as building a "mental backbone".

With a mental backbone I mean building the strength to recover not only from losses, or from feeling temporary unpleasant for whatever reason during the chess games, or when the opponent comes with an unexpected move and your game seems lost.

And ... good to see you had fun ! :)

Nice article, Mike! I told you that is great experience. Nice to see you feeling good and looking forward))))
Great post, Mike! I'm glad you enjoyed the experience. Was it fide rated tournament (or do you know ratings of your opponents)?
I actually don't know if it was fide rated or not (as my knowledge of Czech language is still quite basic) but today I found out that the woman who lost against me has a fide elo of 1591. As she introduced herself to me as the director of an small chess club and offered me to join them in some kind of regional team's league. I definately accepted XD
The rest of te players I don't know as I'm really bad remembering names... XD

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