First OTB prep advice

Def best to play in a low section for your first time, the pressure of OTB chess is different than playing on the computer. Also, the first tourn. don't expect a whole lot of wins... the first one is rough, but it only goes uphill from there ;)

You left out, "YOU'RE A TANK, ROCKY!  YOU"RE GONNA EAT LIGHTNING, AND CRAP THUNDER!"  

The advice has been helpful to me, too. I plan on playing in my first tourney(s?) this summer, especially since 1 is free (JOHN ROSE PALERMO MEMORIAL). I just want to not get creamed in my section (Under 1250, I'm unrated)

While it is true that endgames and middle game tactics are good to know, you cannot completely ignore opening strategy.

For one thing, the lower rated sections in OTB tournaments tend to lean very heavily towards either 1. e4 e5 or 1. e4 c5 lines, or in other words, the 'beginner' opening and the 'I play it cus it's popular' opening. That means of course, that you should AVOID open games and sicilian games if you can help it--those are what the lower rated players are used to seeing all the time, and consequently what they'll have the most experience playing against.

That also means, that you have a better chance of catching the lower rated OTB players off guard with something less popular yet still very sound, like a Caro-Kann or French or English Opening or Saragossa even (my personal favorite).

To me, this sort of thinking is too clever by half. Why take the time to learn something relatively obscure, and certainly positional, just to avoid a simple open game against a beginning player?

I never said openings like the Caro-Kann or French or English were obscure in general! They are very popular and solid openings normally; but because they are a bit rarer at a beginning level, using them brings an extra advantage that the basic open games don't bring, because there is a higher likelihood of catching the opponent unprepared (even with the basic theory).

In fact, I used to catch a lot of people off guard with my openings back when I was playing U1400 scholastic chess, because all they really ever expected there was 1.e4 e5 or 1. e4 c5. Throw em something different but still solid, like a Caro-Kann or an English Opening, where you know the basic lines but they don't, and you can get yourself a nice little starting advantage.

There again is that temptation to devote a lot of time to opening preparation...

Don't do it man. Don't do it.

"There again is that temptation to devote a lot of time to opening preparation..."

You also can't just go into a tournament knowing squat about any basic opening theory and expect to win. Everything has to be balanced.

I also never said that he should devote large amounts of time to it, but just enough to know the basics (and maybe play through a few games against the computer using it and test it out here on the site).

OTB tournaments are cut-throat--you have to take every advantage you can get, even if small.

"Don't do it"...as in "devote only 5%-ish of my time to openings"?  Or as in "do not spend 1 more second of your study time on openings and just study the other stuff with reckless abandon, in spite of not being 'prepared'"?  

I will fall for traps, but if you are serious about the benefits of studying the other parts of chess to the complete exclusion of openings at my level, I am willing to give it a whirl, just for the heckfar of it. 

I see what you are saying, but when I get all motivated to learn an opening to get that advantage (or in my case, to avoid traps in the first few moves), I find myself spending hours going over tan opening when I wonder if I am better off just blitzing through tactics and/or endgames so that overall my performance will be stronger with tactics/endgames than with learning a repertoire, even if that means occasionally falling for a trap before move 7.  

It is very tempting for me to sit there and drill through the opening and read about it, but it hinders the other areas of study, even if I do feel more confident about not getting trapped early on.

Know the basic principles and goals of the openings that you plan to use for your main repetoir, that is the important thing (you could learn these from a good book in just one sit down session). Then just make sure that you play a few games with those openings for practical experience.

What people are actually warning about, is spending time trying to memorize lots of different lines (which I agree is a really bad habit to get into). Memorizing exact lines and learning the general principles and goals of an opening are completely different things.

For example: the principles behind the Caro-Kann are slow development, but solid defense for compensation. It is not an early attacking opening, so you should usually try to avoid being over aggressive in it. Some of the goals for the Caro-Kann are: 1) get your light squared Bishop outside your pawn structure before the normal e6 push, and 2) work towards being able to push c5 to open up your position.

See, I didn't even have to mention a bunch of move orders and lines.

Yes, but general principles are much harder to understand and apply in a game than exact lines, certainly for someone at my level.  Tactics seem more direct in that if I don't understand it or didn't see the pattern, I can play it out later.

 "General" principles seems to imply deep thinking and a strong grasp of strategy, positional play, and also tactics.  Besides, a repertoire is really a combination many openings...you play your move, but it depends on the previous move and the next move.

My white repertoire has me playing into the ruy lopez if black allows it, so I read about the ruy lopez and the lines I wish to play, but if black plays center-counter, then I have to read about that, or maybe black plays Alekhine, and again I have to read about that.  So it can get frustrating.

Have you ever considered something simple then, like the London System? Essentially, white plays pretty much the exact same moves every time regardless of what black does (as long as black doesn't directly engage or attack).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_System

And in a way, you are right tactics being most important (and I never said they weren't the most important). At your level, 99% of the games are going to be decided by 1 or 2 large, game losing blunders, and so the person who can take advantage of the inevitable blunder first is usually the one to win.

But still, even though tatics are highest priority, that doesn't excuse having holes in other areas of your game (like knowing basic mates and basic openings and such). Just spend maybe 30 minutes to an hour learning the basics of your preferred opening from a general opening book, and then be done with it (and no line memorization, e.g., if he moves here, then I move here, then if he moves there, then I move here, ect.)

I agree with you that some opening prep is needed.  I went with my current opening, based on the general advice of learning open games and exposing myself to various pawn structures.  I am learning my fourth move as black and as white but it takes forever and I am not sure how much time to spend on this...

Although tactics may decide 99% of games at my level, I am sure a significant percentage of those occur in the opening!

@ponnupazoozu

I think that depends a lot on the type of tournament you're playing in. If you are playing in an adult tournament, then yeah any kid with the guts to enter there (as opposed to sticking with scholastic tournaments) is probably going to be really scary to play (just like it is safe to assume that a 14 year old kid enrolling in university classes is probably going to be pretty darn smart).

But in general scholastic tournaments, I think that the average playing level of the kids is far lower.

Teary and I are agreed on the opening prep. Don't memorize lines. Know your principles, and if you want to look at -one- line for center-counter, -one- line for alekhine's (you won't face this one most likely, but still), and so on, feel free. Just don't try to memorize the whole opening. The point of looking at a line is to get a feel for how the opening should be going. You'll see, for example, that caro-kann doesn't have black attacking. Alekhine's doesn't have black building a big pawn center, etc.

I just got back from my first tournament in over 10 years. One of my opponents was out of his opening knowledge in 3 moves. One was still in book at move 10. They both lost. The first one was lost by move 10, but that had more to do with what I was playing than the fact that he was out of book. The Grand Prix attack is very unforgiving. The other one lost because of positional pressure leading to a piece. In my last game, I was dead lost, until my opponent missed a pin and I was able to take a free bishop, then I could win the endgame.

When you know where you might develop your pieces, and you have an idea what your plan might be, you've done enough opening study on that opening. Go play games with it so you can learn more about it in a practical setting. 3 of my 5 opponents lost a piece to me tactically. Your first priority is to not do that. All these other factors are to help you not drop pieces.

I officially signed up for my first OTB tournament: 1 x G/75 and 4 x G/90 (U1400) and 10 x G/5 (open)...the countdown begins.  Thanks for the advice/insight, everyone.

Well you just better let us know how it went, we are like family, and being you are here  at Chess .com, I feel you will do better  then your competition because they do not have the benefit of all this usefull advise here, lolo Maybe you could treat us to one of your games posted here!  Hope you got a Chess.com tee-shirt to wear at the games it will have psychological affacts on your opponent.

article that deals with just this subject:

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/771849/getting_started_the_new_chess_tournament.html?cat=19