Hey everyone!

I decided I am going to play in the Oregon Open tournament reserve section. Its a 6 round SS tourney on Labor day weekend. It has 40 moves in 2 hours + 1 hour sudden death as its time control.

I played last year in the reserve and got 2 draws, 2 wins and 2 loses. This year, I figured I'd ask the chess.com community to give me tips.

The two areas where I think I had the biggest problem were time and openings.

Even though I had 2 hours, I only spent more than 1 hour in 1 of my 6 games. I just am not used to trying to focus that long on a single game. The calculations and visualization isn't my problem, but concentration definitely is. I'd get anxious for one round to end so I could start playing the next and then my heart wouldn't really be in the game. How do you guys and gals stay focused for such long periods of time? I think I need some advice as I doubt I will be able to play any 3-4 hour games with anyone between now and then as I am rather busy and I don't know many people who want to sit that long for a casual game in a coffee shop.

Second off. About openings. I know 5-7 moves of most openings, but I don't do any specific preparation such as planning which openings ill use ahead of time. I didn't play e4 all 3 games I was white last year, and I doubt I will this time. Do you strongly recommend playing a single opening consistantly? Or is it okay to vary it between english, QG, ruy, birds, scotch game, etc? What about for defenses? Should I make a flashcard saying which opening ill play and study it, or can I just get up there and play whatever I feel inspired to play at the time? I didn't lose any pawns or anything in any of the games last tournament, but I did get in some slightly unfavorable positions. You guys can see the 6 games on my chess.com blog titled 'my performance pt 1-3'. So I guess this is just saying, as long as I don't really play competitively (in the Open section), is it okay to continue to just wing which opening I play, or is this psychologically detrimental to my performance? Should I be memorizing lines to play exclusively and not play other lines I haven't been memorizing?

I'd suggest booking up.  Everyone is going to have a 'pet'.  You should at the very least have your own 'pet opening'.  Ideally you want to not have a pet but rather know everyone else's pets really well ... but of course that involves learning hundreds of opening lines (worth picking away at over time).

In the end, you want to be prepared.  Wars are won and lost off the battlefield.

As your play level gets higher, you get a lot more to think about. A 1000 player would still get crushed by a 1600 even if had 4 hours to think and you 1 hour. But even I (I like to take my time) rarely use the full 2 hours, but in 1 hour or less I often get into time trouble. As for opening study, 5-7 moves is good for many openings, but some like the popular sicilian if you're playing e4 simply require in depth study and memorization along with general ideas. I have sometimes lost because I didn't memorize enough, at least against the stronger players. But of course only the critical variations should be studied extensively. And also for openings like the french, you don't need to know that much theory but make sure you know what you're doing in these types of diferent openings. And if you have a pet line you really like, study that one alot, both plans and detailed analysis. The moves will be natural to you and you will do well in those positions if you do.

1. Stay tactically sharp, do plenty of tactics problems every day leading up to the tournament and on the morning of the tournament.

2.Get booked up on openings as much as you can in the time you have left.

Alright. Thanks for the advice. I don't expect to be 6/6 at the end, but 4/6 would be nice. I'll try to pick out a couple pet lines to play as often as possible.

As Elubas said, the French doesn't require you to know thousands of moves, but just the theory behind it and a good grasp of what you are trying to do. I think that will work better for me than something like the Sicilian which seems to have endless lines.

My impression is that the Closed Sicilian (2. Nc3) requires less book knowledge than 2. Nf3, is this true? It seems like most people play Nf3 and know more lines for it and are generally more confident with it. So I think I could skirt some of their prep by play Nc3 instead. Do you agree with this thought of mine?

I have recently been playing the closed and it's a good line for strategical play. Also many people don't expect it and often develop their knight to f6 (which encourages e5) like in the open. However sometimes it can get dull because you feel like you're playing the same position over and over again.

As for the tactics I have been recommended to do, I have been doing the 3 / day as a free member. Also I do the ones in various chess.com blogs and the daily puzzle, etc. My current tactics rating is 2463, so I think that I'll be good enough on that regard right now. I will focus most of the next two weeks on learning a couple openings well.