OTB - how to get started?

do you know the worlds number one player in the Under-10 section? He lives in Germany and is in the same training with me, so I know him pretty good. He is 9 years old and rated 2100!!!!!! Thats unbelievable, he has good potential to get a very very strong GM one day, no doubt about that. In one of his tournaments he managed to draw against a 2600 GM.

Yeah, I think the lack of familiarity with the physical board did play a part, especially on the first day.  I was coping with it a lot better on the second day though (games 5 and 6) - I didn't make any silly mistakes.

No, I don't go to any clubs - these were literally the first serious OTB games I've played!

That's very impressive.  I don't have any problem getting beat by kids - I know there are a lot of strong kids out there and if they play well and beat me then fair enough  :-)

I asked the kid I played in game 3 how many OTB tournaments he's been to, and he said 40-50!  Wow!  Kind of shows what a massive deficit I have in OTB tourney experience! 

Congratulations on making the OTB plunge !

Don't worry about this first performance : as soon as you become familiar with the OTB environment, I'm pretty sure you'll win a lot !

Here we see AKAL1 and his 2100 rated opponent completely bungle a rook ending and send Pal Benko's head spinning.

@ hicetnunc: thanks for the encouragement - hopefully I will do better next time!

@ AKAL1: Thanks for posting that endgame - looks like you had a bit of luck there. I like all the question marks too, although wait until you see my games! :-)

I don't see how 2.Rf1 draws.

1...h3 2.Rf1 and he has the same idea 2...Rg2+ with h2 and Rg1 to win.

I third you, but the king should have been on d4 and the move Rf2...mea culpa

It doesn't change much else though

Yes there are a lot of kids in the tournaments and they are very good tactically and play really fast! When they are worse they often keep on offering a draw, kind of funny. And indeed, many are underrated, just passing trhough the section... Well, it is good for chess that so many youngsters play I think. You get used to them and to using the board too, just keep it up and it can be a lot of fun! Also a lot harder than playing online, if you have an off-day OTB it is much worse than here of course!

Hi alghul!  Yes, I definitely felt there was a higher level of intensity compared with playing online.  People were really giving everything they've got for the win, whereas I think online there are more casual players who aren't always giving it 100%.  I reached winning positions in 2 of my games on the first day. Online I wouldn't have been surprised if my opponent would have resigned or abandoned the game at that point; however, OTB, even down a piece they made me play on and prove I could convert the win, which I promptly failed to do in both games!

Another observation is that, the week before the tourney, I spent a load of time cramming opening lines.  E.g., I was memorizing lines in the Dragon and Nimzo Indian up to about move 13.  That turned out to be a complete waste of time - almost every game was some variation of the Italian Game and we were out of book by about move 6.  I'll learn from this and in future I'll focus more on general opening principles and getting more practise games in before the tourney.  There wasn't any whacky, non-mainstream stuff - I presume their coaches had advised them to just stick with the basic classical openings.

dont worry if you don't do well OTB.

my first FIDE rating was 1376 about 4 years ago. Now about 8-9 tourneys late i am 1736-the number is a complete coincidence i assure u 

Ok, here's the first game I played - the first time I've played the Evan's Gambit as White.  It didn't turn out too well, as you can see - made several really inexplicable blunders.  I was getting into a bit of time trouble near the end, but that's not really any excuse!

Thanks for your comments chessmicky.  Yes, I think 9.Qb5 would have been quite viable as well, although I think it probably would have still been best to have exchanged the Bishop on g8 after either 9..b6 or 9..Bb6.

I definitely like the Evans Gambit setup though and I can see how Black could end up in a real mess fast if they're not familiar with it.  Even after dropping the Bishop on move 15, I still had several chances to salvage a reasonable position, given his exposed King  :-)

Ok, here's game 2.  Fortunately for me, my opponent hung a knight fairly early on and I was in control for most of the game.  We traded down to an endgame that should have been a fairly straightforward win; however, I had another inexplicable brain fart and allowed him to fork my knight, throwing away the win.  I tried in vain to stop the connected passed pawns, but I knew there was nothing I could do

This is going to be not what chess-com wants to hear, but I felt that my OTB play has dropped since I became more active on this site.  When you play OTB, all of your attention is on that one game.  Even if you are playing timed games here, you are not concentrating 100% on the game and you know that there is another game in 1/2 hour. In OTB, you are limited on your games and try to make the most of them.  Don't get me wrong.  Chess-com is great for the social aspect of chess...which OTB has 0%.  Has anybody else found this to be true?

Chessmicky:  I agree with you. Since OTB games are limited (I typically play in one game a week for four weeks rather than the games being all in one day), I find that I take the OTB games more serious.  When you start to try some novelty moves on chess-com, you know that there is always another game around the corner.  I found that I started playing more relaxed OTB and that hurt my 120 minutes w/ 5 sec delay games.  Of course, my blitz performance has improved greatly.

I have a question about the first game.  (Warning, I'm a chess moron.)  Wouldn't 9. Qb5 run into 9...b6, keeping the queen out of action in the immediate future?

I can totally see this.  Though I've never played OTB (other than a casual game with friends), I play poker both online and live, and I've found what you pointed out to be quite true.