Your First OTB Tournament

Hello, everyone. I'm planning to play in my first OTB tournament over the summer and was wondering how people's first tournament went?

What was the result of the first OTB tournament you went to? How much, or lack of fun did you have? If you want, you can even post the games here!

My score was 4.0/6

I was 20. It was a fantastic experience, and I even won many games !

My first OTB rated event was a " quad " event held by my club back in 1973 .  They group players by rating in groups of 4 and you play a round robin with the winner of each group getting a trophy . I lost all 3 games against 1500 players , I had no rating at the time ( first rated event ) but this is the group the TD ( our club's president ) guestimated I should play in ... obviously he was wrong .  

I remember my first tournament. I got paired first round with my friend but he did not show up so i got a bye. 2nd round got paired vs some ~8 year old kid. I was like hehehe how cute.. he barely is tall enough to see the board.. i will show this kid what's up. Back then i was thinking no kid can beat me in chess. Just no one. Kids cant play chess. But i was wrong. I did not knew much about chess anyway. And This one happens to be 1st or 2nd at european championiship U8,  i can't believe but i ... lost.. and i was eliminated.  Sadly this type of tournaments back 10y ago were really fun, but i had no interest in chess, now when i do , tournaments are mostly gone..

@Harish73, Nice score! I can only  dream of performing that well for my first tournament ;)

@hicetnunc, Its interesting how you went to your first tournament at 20, and here I was thinking I was a late bloomer going to tournaments at 16.

@Reb, I didn't know chess clubs also host tournaments. I might have to see if I can join a chess club around me!

@AIM-AceMove, At least you were eliminated by a 1st/2nd player in their age group in the ENTIRE continent. That's not too bad, if you ask me.

I think I need to start preparing with the longer time controls and conditions. If anyone wants to play 45/45 or 90/30 with me, I would appreciate it. I'd like to play three longer time controls like this in a row to build up my mental endurance, so if anyone wants to play just one with me I'd be one step closer to getting three opponents!

Most chess clubs host a few tournies every year , if you are lucky you can find one that hosts many tournies every year . 

I would advice you to prepare really well. It will be good that your first rating (not sure how uscf rating system works) to be high enough and as much close to 2200 as possible. That will give you boost and confiedence and you won't spend forever climbing the ladder as you would if your first rating is 1300 for example. (but you are under 20 so maybe is like fide where U20 K=40 - double points for wins etc.)  i know people, adults, who were very enthusiastic to get big in chess but they blow away their first games in tournaments and received low rating. Then kids with low rating beated them and that just shutted down they desire and gave up on chess. It happens a lot actually. I remember the "backyardprofessor" from yotuube - he scored under 1000 in first torunament and quitted chess. Before that he was talking how he wish to become NM and was considering himself good/average player teaching others with his lessons.

So as first impression in life is importhan , is will be good to score well in your first games/tournaments.

ofcourse make sure to have good time, make friends specially with strong players etc.

@nathan

Typo error>>>>4.0/ 7 not 6.

Its was a state level U14 aged tourn. I crushed my opponent in my first game. In the second game I was paired against a 1475 rated guy. I went very wrong in the Sicilian dragon and he demolished me.

That is probably my best experience ever! That tourn was really awesome. Even I lost that it was amazing experience.

I can only remember getting 0 points in that first tournament. 

Yes, understimating an opponent is a mistake already. In other sports if you have big advantage almost sure it will be a win, but in chess even if you are ahead all game, just one mistake and can be lost. 

A high school friend told me about a quad tournament being held at the Harvard Science building (the weird one that looked like a giant Polaroid camera) in mid-October 1977. Round 1 was a loss to a fellow high school teammate (Lieberman) who I lost to. Round 2 was a game against a Harvard student (Haessler) on whom I tried out my novelty "invention" 1.d4 2.e3 3.Nf3. This befuddled him and eventually he dropped an exchange, which I converted to a win. There was no time for the last round, so I had to come back and play the event organizer about a week or so later at night. I played a Center-Counter (no one called it the Scandinavian then) and lost a fairly lifeless game. Net result: provisional rating of 1210.

My first tornament was a fide below 1500 rating tournament with 9 rounds. My result was 2 out of 9. :)

After that first tourney I got a rating of 1096.

I just had my first tournament yesterday! It was a very fun experience. It was also very humbling. I signed up for the U1200 group and came out with 1.5/5 as compared to what I thought I'd get (3/5 at least). My rating ended up being 811 after my first 5 games. 

On the one hand that's kind of crappy, but on the other, it gives you somethig to work your way up from.

Your rating is basically a kind of feedback loop on how well you've been preparing. If you don't invest too much ego into it, you can take it as an indicator and move on.

I know ;-;

Honestly 5 games isn't really enough to tell your actual skill, especially if you make a blunder that you would've seen had you not been stressed that led to immediate checkmate 2 of the 5 games like I did. Had I not made these blunders, my rating would be more like 950. Still i cri ;-;