I'm here right now. Great spa, not that near my home town. 

We have some kind of "worker games" for people who work in city administration. We have 54 teams and more than 1.400 people here. 

I signed up to play chess. And we will play Swiss system. I have 3 games today and 2 games tomorrow. And I have no idea who I am playing with. I don't know if I'm going to play master candidate, IM, or someone who just know something about chess and wanted to come here and relax.

Now, I know what I know and whay I like to play. But every time I sit OTB, It's like I never played a game of chess. I stary playing some strange moves in the opening, or I just answer 1.d4 with 1..f5!! And I never in my life played Dutch.

Just wish me luck. I will try not to forget to write down my games, and post them when the pain and embarrassment is over.

Good luck ! let us know how it goes, will ya.

play otb before ?

With friends and brothers, but I know they suck, now I play someone who can be from "I know hot to set up the board" to "I was a GM 10 years ago but I don't play active chess"

remember:  move, clock, write move down.

I think the order is write, move, and then clock. I think you are required to write moves down until there is five minutes left after that it is up to yourself.

A bit of advise is to try and relax and don't rush but keep mindful of the clock.

Good luck and keep us posted!

Borg in which moves order do you do at the otb ?

Good luck!

Remember to notate your games, and analyze them afterwards to se what you did wrong ,and learn from your mistakes! You can also share them on chess.com, so the community can help you analyze them.

Good luck my friend...

I still remember my 1st and only OTB tournament... It was also a swiss system tournament... my 1st and unforgatable game was against this player http://ratings.fide.com/card.phtml?event=2110733... he was the best rated player... so I played at the board 1 in my very 1st OTB tournament game under lights and recorded by professional video camera...

And I won... 

I played the Marshal Attack after a friend's advice, it was a 21 minutes game, my opponent had time trouble and I managed to outplay him until his resignation...

After this unexpected victory I stayed at board 1 for the next round and I blundered all other games... What was much more expected...

So my friend, good luck... I lose all my games except one, but to win the best rated player at board 1 is priceless... BTW, for my unexpected win, my friend managed win all his games except a draw to be that tournament 1st place... He did not had to face the best rated player who won all his other games, but lost the 1st one...

Think, Play, Clock, Write, Plan, Opponent Plays, Write.

Great advice... and don't forget the clock part...

Good luck!  And just remember it's a GAME and you're supposed to have fun.

 Are you allowed to write on your opponents time ? I didn't think so but will do if allowed?

I don't know, there was no law against it last time I read the rules, but much has changed since then ^_^

Nobody's ever complained about what I do.

You are (it has to be written down before you make your next). In fact, you're not allowed to write down the move before you make it, that's considered taking notes now.

I have now found out that writing your move down before you move has been banned since 2005, I will keep looking for whether you can hit clock then write move down.

I saw a Garry Kasparov's game on Youtube that he move,stop the clock, write down his move then when opponent made thier move Garry write down the opponent's move.   

Yes one can write after hit clock and before opponent's move...

Very generous of you to award two exclamation marks to 1.f5.

Good luck to the tourney.