How to Prepare for an OTB Chess Tournament

Preparing for an over-the-board tournament is not quite like playing chess online. Here's what matters most:

• Study openings, don't memorize them. Find a system you can play comfortably against most openings - something that gets your king safe, your pieces developed, and gives you a clear plan going into the middlegame.
• Do tactics every day. Pattern recognition is one of the most important things to practice. Even just 15-20 minutes of puzzles daily will show up in your games.
• Know your basic endgames: Lucena, Philidor, basic mating patterns. You don't want to reach a winning endgame and throw it because you didn't know what to do (trust me, I've done it so many times).
• Put away blitz and bullet for a few weeks before your tournament. Play longer time controls instead! You need to practice thinking, not just reacting and clicking.
• Analyze your losses, first without an engine. Find out where it went wrong, figure out why, then check with the engine after.
• Take care of the basics - sleep, food and exercise. A classical chess game is really exhausting!

Don't focus on results or how many games you're winning. Sit down behind the board and just enjoy it - there's a real person in front of you, it's high stakes, it's exciting. Focus on that. The rating will sort itself out.

For the full breakdown, check out the video on my YouTube channel!