OTB - how to get started?

TimeForTea, there's the ChessIQ club maybe half an hour to 45 minutes away

Time Control is normally 60/30 increment

Ok, thanks AKAL1 - I might come down and try it sometime .  Are you playing in the Illinois Open?

              Chess.com University has slow time controls, a couple of other groups do too.     BTW, your hamsters' had enough tea.

Yes, I am still alive!  Sorry, just been mega-busy over the past few days

Thanks very much for all the advice and analysis - I really appreciate it.  There are definitely some very interesting lines in there and I will make sure I look over them a couple of times before the tournament.  I'll definitely consider playing the Evan's Gambit if they play 3..Bc5 - looks like an agressive system and tricky to deal with (although some of those other lines look quite sneaky too).

I'd just better make sure I prepare some other lines as well, in case they don't go for 1.e4 e5 

I will also post all of the games that I play in the tournament in this thread.  Even if I hang all my Queens and play terrible - I will do it!

If you are asking whether I'm playing in the Open Section in order to get crushed by a GM, the answer is yes

You'd do better in the Open imo. Since this is your first time playing OTB, It's understandable to play in the reserve, but you do play well!  At lesat, better than me at any rate, and I'm 2000 USCF. 

As for the time control, the adjustment after the first few games will be hard, especially for someone used to CC.

I was actually just wondering if you were playing in the tourney at all, but I wish you best of luck in the open section.  If you PM me your real name then I'll come and say 'Hi' 

Thanks for the encouragement AKAL1, but I'm not sure my online rating is going to translate that well into OTB.  I can strategize and analyse deeply when I have lots of time, but I've been playing too much correspondence recently and I've gotten out of the habit of thinking quickly and managing my clock.  I'll see how this one goes, but I don't think I'm quite ready to play with the 'big boys' just yet 

About the time controls, I'm actually feeling more confident about the 90/30 games because I'm used to spending time on my moves.  It's the first three 45 d5 ones that I'm more anxious about! 

It is getting close now, rooting for you! Make sure you know the Lucena and Philidor rook endgame positions, those are the endgames most frequently seen according to de la Villa (100 endgames you must know).

So, I played in my first OTB tourney at the weekend (Illinois Open, Reserve section).  Tbh, I did pretty bad - basically got beat on by a bunch of 12-year-olds (I'm 32 btw - the oldest person I played was probably about 14).  The first day I pretty much had a board vision meltdown and lost all 4 games, hanging material all over the place.  I think it was mostly down to nerves and not being used to playing with a real board.  For some reason I just wasn't thinking straight.  Also, after the first couple of losses, my confidence started to take a dive, which didn't help.

I had some patches of playing decent Chess, but unfortunately none of them lasted long enough for me to win a game (or even draw).  In two of the games I managed to get into winning positions, only to blunder it away, which was disappointing, although there are some positives in the way I played up to that point.

On the second day though I got my head together a bit more and I think I played a lot better.  I didn't make any silly mistakes and I won 1 and lost 1.  So, I ended up with 1 win and 5 losses.  Still, I felt pleased that I managed to pull it around on the 2nd day and I at least won my last game, so I got to taste the thrill of OTB victory  :-)

Overall though, I still had fun and it was a great experience.  I'm already hungry for some more and another chance to prove that I can do better.  I will post up the games over the next few days, but they're not very pretty :-)

hey guys im from illinois too. I have been to the chessiq tournaments before

You'll find strong kids at just about every level of chess.

Welcome to OTB chess!

Don't worry, my games were worse, lol. I'll try to post a game to sum up my entire tournament tomorrow, but I digress. I hope you'll play in another tourney soon (and possibly win-you're still better than me!)

I had the impression that most of these kids were stronger than their ratings indicated (my average opponent was about 1200) - I think their performance was mainly being hampered by the fact that they were playing too fast and making the occasional careless mistake.  They were playing way faster than the time control - the kid I beat had almost an hour left on his clock when he hung his Queen!

Hi darek123.  I haven't been to the chessiq tournaments - are they good?  What sort of time control do they use?

Lol - I doubt that somehow, AKAL1, I played a couple of absolute shockers!  I'd be interested to see your game though.  How did you do in the end?  Did you play any masters?

Yeah, kids play quickly in general.  Very rarely do you see them get into time trouble.  Some even play it like a blitz game.

Although if all they're doing is checking forcing lines quickly then it can give a false impression of there being more strength.  If they haven't learned how to analyze a position beyond that then taking extra time actually doesn't help them much.  Hanging queens notwithstanding ;)

Seems like maybe you had trouble looking at a 3d board?  Considering your ratings on here, once you get used to it your performance will probably improve a lot.  Do you visit any clubs?