SECOND Tournament Preparations...

Yesterday, I went to my first tournament, and ended up with 2.0 out of four points in section 3 (1100-1300). I got nowhere close to a trophy position, but, I'm satisfied, since, after all, it was my first tournament.

Now, here the thing. In about half a month or so, I'm planning on playing in another tourney, and it will be much longer than the 4 round Swiss G/60 I played last time (Each game is 40/100, SD/1 [Does that mean 40 moves in 100 minutes, followed by the game in 1 minute or 1 hour? It looks like 1 minute, and I'm awful at bullet ), followed by another event the next day, a 3 round Swiss, G/60. I've still got a mild headache from yesterday's tourney. So, what should I do to prepare for such long games?

Thanks in advance

Thanks Mouse. I don't know all the details, but I'd expect they are probably using digital clocks. I'll post the games up, but there's not much to see: in the first game, my opponent played bad positionally, I relaxed and then lost a rook to a checkmate threat thanks to ignoring the "Never move immediately- this is how blunders occur. Always spend at least 30 seconds on a move, even if it appears obvious, as you may be missing something." rule, followed almost immediately by getting skewered and losing the other rook. In the second game, I tricked my opponent into losing his queen with a knight fork (He ignored the "Never move immediately- this is how blunders occur. Always spend at least 30 seconds on a move, even if it appears obvious, as you may be missing something." rule), blundered away the queen for a rook, but managed to win the 2N vs. N endgame. In the last game, I lost a healthy pawn, ignored every single opportunity to win it back, and lost in the endgame (which I stupidly didn't notate, the endgame is the worst part of the game for me). In the third game, I just found a nice tactic and checkmated him...

There was staff on hand, and they analyzed games for free. The above covers most of what they said, although they mentioned that I have a bad habit of ignoring king safety, and also, that I need to have a plan when I move (something I also tend to ignore).

I think I should of been moved up in that tournament....

@funandniceisme: It's probably just because you're unrated. I am too, but I managed to impress the TD back during camp (last two games on this page)

Anyway, here's one of the games from the tourney:

It means 40 moves in 100 minutes, and then an additional 1hr for all the rest of your moves. That's a slightly odd way for them to say it, I'd prefer to write them both in minutes...

As for preparations, the first time you do this, you won't get it right, so just try to use all your time and make note of how you failed. Your next long time control will go better. It's especially hard to make it actually work if you're rather low rated, because you don't have enough to think about to fill up that time. Maybe you should practice having long "thinks" about positions. Take a suitably complex position, take 15 minutes to narrate everything about the position, come up with a plan, and decide on what move to play. Take at least 10 min, but stop yourself at 15.

Thanks for the tip, gz.

I don't know my provisional USCF yet, but I'm guessing that it will be in the higher 1100- lower 1200 range.

A question: Should I spend a fair amount of time on moves that are still in opening theory? (e.g. to come up with a plan for the game, etc.) I don't think so, but I've never played such a long time before, so...

There's not much point in using a lot of time for a move you know you're going to play, and at your level I can't imagine you're at the point where you're in "theory" for 15 moves (and if you are, your priorities are wrong!), so it's not such a huge deal. For a 40 move time control, I think Botvinnik's guideline was 25% of your time for the first 15 moves, but that was for masters who knew a lot of "book".

The last tournament I played in, I played a 1700, a 1650, a 1600, and an unrated, and we were "out of book" by move 6 in each game.

On that opening you played 1.e4 d5 your opponent should have just captured the pawn as your opponent give up the central position...I learned that the hard way as you control the central position by moving pawn c5...Nicely done GD

gathered dust based apon your rating you will probably be about a 600 maybe 700. seeing the way you play.