How Many Rated Tournaments Before You Won Your First?

How many rated tournaments did you play in before you won your first?

I'll let you know if it ever happens. 

Ok-good!

I won my first tournament and my first rated game the same day at the Alabama state championships in 1973.  Only problem was they had an unrated title and that has been my only claim to winning anything in chess, but it was a nice wood chess set with box.

I won first on tie breaks in my section of the first USCF rated tournament I went to.  It was a scolastic though, so it doesn't count for much.

3

I won the first rated tournament I ever played in but it was in duplicate bridge. 

 As for chess my first tournament was the US Open in Omaha in 1959 which I scored 6 out of 12 and did not win.

My 2nd USCF Tournament was the Bradly Summer Open which I did win.

10 tournaments before my first win. You guys are too good.

I have been close to winning a few tournaments bu i have always bottled it in the last game. :( There fore in the 9 years of playing (5 very active and 25 tournaments) i have never won one. I have came second in the All-Ireland's twice with my school team but never won :(

Actually that just reminded me that my school team (i was board 8/12) won an internaional competition in Millfield ENgland, but we won the lower tiered tournament. Came second in the next tier up the year after. We beat the winners in the last round but they had more points over all.

Hasn't happened yet--the closest I've come is third place.  

I'm confident I'll win one soon, though.

It is quite difficalt - you must win at least 4 games from 5. Before my first gold I took 2nd and 3rd place 6 times. And over all it was may be 15 tournaments I played before I get gold.

Something specific in tournaments games - pretty often I am loosing to much weeker player which happened very rare in not-tournament games. When player rated 750 playing like 1200 I am not sure that somebody else play instead of this men. I just do not understand - why they doing this crap.

I won my first rated tournament, scoring 7 out of 7 and getting rated 1400

Earlier I played in some unrated tournaments (there might be 15 of them but I do not recall exactly - that was in 1991)

Won my first?  As in first tournament? 

I've never won a tournament.  I've won my class but not sure that counts :p

3

With so many sections in US tournaments it can be confusing . If you have 3 sections in an Open tourney who could claim they won the tourney ?  Each of the section winners could claim they won it , no ?  My first tourney win was winning the amateur section of the 1975 Wiregrass Open in Dothan Alabama . I do not recall how many events I played before this event but probably a dozen or fewer but the Amateur section was for under 1600 or under 1800 back then , I cant be sure ... I think the real winner of an event is the one who finishes first in the top section but each section winner has some bragging rights too I reckon . 

I won my first duplicate bridge tournament i ever played in. [And many since then.]

In chess, my first tournament was the US Open where i only scored 5 wins and 5 losses and 2 draws.

My 2nd USCF tournament had no class prizes. I scored 4 1/2 out of 5 games to win. The highest rated players were all Class A. 

Well, it was my 4th USCF-rated tourney where I outright won my first scholastic tourney (at least the section I was in [Elem/Prim] where the field consisted of 26 players with a 5) roughly 20 years ago.   As for my first adult tourney, it was 14 adult rated-USCF rated tourneys before I won the U1600 section in a local tourney with a 3.5/4 score where there were 15 entrants for the section roughly 19 years ago and another 33 adult USCF-rated tourneys before I outright won the Amateur (U1800) section with a 5.5/6 score in the VA State Championship roughly 16 years ago where there were 68 players in the section.