Tips for my the 1st tournament

Hello, 

I´d like to ask you for some advices/tips. Next week there starts the tournament in our local chess club. I´m novice there and this is my the first real live tournament.

I will play a Black in the 1st round, so I need to prepare some good response for 1.d4  and 1.e4

What is the best for me = a novice with rating cca 1200-1300 (I think) ?

In case 1.d4: 

1.d4 d5 2. c3 ... and me?  Slav-defence (c6) or classic defence (e6)? Or some another one?

And in case 1.e4 ?  I very like to play 1. ...e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 (+ Italian or 4 knights), but          I can´t know what game will voted by my opponent. And I don´t know if it isn´t too simple against a player with the rating cca 1650.

Or should I play rather another defence - French for example (I like it too) or Sicilian (but there is many many variants, I don´t know very well this defence)?

Many thanks for any your tips !

Niraj

Just have fun and remember to : http://www.megalook.ru/schild.swf?namee=u_and_me_

Haha, very funny    Do you think it helps me?

The best thing for you is to play what you play best/know best. Whatever you feel comfortable playing is what you should play. Tournaments are stressful enough without trying to remember something you didn't know two weeks ago.

Oh, and whatever you do, don't drop a piece! About 90% of chess success is not losing material.

You can't prepare a whole repertoire in only a week.

Just play what you know, that way you are less likely to lose in the opening.

Advice? Relax, play slowly and try not to drop any pieces.

Doc and Doggy on the same wavelength.

Listen to the animals, Dr Doolittle!

Maybe not that animal.

Always remember, if you act outrageously at the board (slamming pieces, making faces at your opponent, swaggering like King Kong...) you had better make sure you win. If you ever slip or make a mistake or flush a dead draw into a loss, you'll look and feel like a complete ninny. If you are competent at the game, you won't need poor sportsmanship. If not, they won't help.

Ahoj Niraj,
Jee, I saw that your Live Chess and Tactics Trainer ratings are extremly low ... To be honest, if I were you, for the future I would rather go with just one-two openings and focus much more on endgame, tactics and better time&presure management for OTB and Live. One should develop the openings only after good knowledge of the tactics and endgame. How else one can chose an opening and middlegame strategy if one cannot see the advantages or disadvantages of the endgames ?

Cau

I'm interested? Did you do ok and what did you play?

In the future, if you know who you're playing, preperation can be against any opening they seem to play often.

Ahoj Dorin

thanks a lot for your advice. Yes my ratings are very low. I can´t get over 1100 in Tactics and Live Chess rating is terrible too. I try to train almost every day but without big improvement. My weak points are Tactics / Strategy / Middlegame.  I never know what to play after the first several moves at the start of game (after the complete development of pieces). I have no plan. This is my big big problem.

to J-Star-Roar:

Unfortunately, I´m a novice in our chess club, so I don´t know the favourite Openings of my colleagues. However, I have already played 2 games and I have lost 2 games :-)  I was Black in both cases, one game was: 1.d4 d5 2.Jf3 e6    and the second one: 1.e4 e5 2.f4 d5

Ah well. Strong opponents help you improve. But you ought to be able to get to a database to see what your opponents played in matches if they've been there long enough.

May I ask, what's the time control?

My first tournament I completely, totally, and utterly failed (0.5/5, draw was from a 1000 -_-). I have played many since then, and the ultimate top two tips I can give are 

1. Use all of your time. You must use the time to think through all the opponents possible moves and your responses. My first tournament I didn't this and was ending 90/30 games with an hour and ten minutes left on the clock...very bad.

2. Be confident. You have to go into games thinking "I'm going to crush you, even if I have to do it slowly". Is it very aggressive? Yes. Is that the attitude required to win serious chess games? Yes.

I carried those two tips into the same tourney the year after and went 4/5 winning some cash prizes :)

What is your plan if White opens with something else? 1.c4 or 1.b3 or 1.Nf3 or 1.Nc3 etc?

Ahoj again Niraj,

You can improve your tactics, endgame and middlegame right here on chess.com, using Chess Menthor, reading the articles and watching the videos related with endgames and strategy.

It's like when you try to solve a labirinth problem on the paper, you need to start not from the start line, but from the finish line and take the good path to the start line ... you need to master the endgame better and go toward the openings after. 

Beside this, the opening choise is very personal, depends how do you like to play ... playing a closed opening will not make a combinative player happy and vice-versus ...

Cau

Thanks to all for your advices, I try to follow them. I´m member of chess.com about 3 months only, so I´m still on the start. Chess Mentor is very good thing, very helpful for me. I use it every day. 

--> MSC157: now we play 40min + 20s/move  (in our local chess club tournament)

--> Chicken_Monster: in case of the atypical first move (1.c4 or 1.b3 or 1.Nf3 or 1.Nc) I play e5 (if is it possible) or d5 and I try to get open game as usual (= developing N, B, castling, ...)

Let us know how it goes. Post some of your games if you want.

Dan Heisman has a great little book for OTB. Everyone's 2nd Chessbook. Get the most recent edition, and Dan can send you an errata (but it is pretty clean). It gives lots of good tips. It is out of print now, but easy to find on Amazon.

Actually I scored 4.5/5 in my most recent tournament by going into each game with the mindset: "I don't care about the result, just gonna try to play good moves" :P