Playing in my First OTB Tournament tomorrow!

Hey everyone, I am a 13 year old playing in my first ever chess tournament tomorrow, I have played chess casually for a few years but I've never played in a real OTB tournament until now. I don't really know anything other than it is for USCF <1000 and it is for all K-12 students. Can anyone give me some tips? I'm really excited and I want to be as prepared as possible!

Good luck! I will be in my first tournament on Monday.

Play slow and analyze what the other person may be trying to do (I do play against people who have played in tournaments a lot).

Thanks! That is cool, good luck to you as well!

Thanks!

Thanks!

The single most important thing to do before your first tournament is:

Get plenty of sleep!

The second most important thing to remember is that chess is a game. Have fun!

He just went to bed, I was playing him.

Don't forget to turn off your phone.

Good luck. Hope you win. 

Thanks guys, I appreciate it!

Good luck, kid! Everybody gave great advice especially about taking time. New players tend to rush their moves a lot in the first few events they play in. After a while you will learn how to budget your time. This can vary depending on what the time control is.

Yep. This happened to me in my first OTB classical tournament. I played the first few games like blitz chess! Hope you do well!

Dont forget to tell us how you did (If you want to)

Thanks so much to everyone who gave advice. It went well, I won 1.5 points out of a possible 4. The tournament was from 9 AM to 12 PM and we just played as many rounds as we could. We had 30 minutes for all of our moves. I tied for 7th place out of 10 players, which isn't too bad for my first time! It was a learning experience, and it was a lot of fun! Thanks to everyone who gave advice, I appreciate it!

my first (classical time control) congress was an under 105 ecf (equivalent to an under 1487.5 FIDE) and I did terribly scoring only 2/5 (one of the points was from a full point bye so it was in a way 1/4) since then i have won two classical time control tournaments with a full 5/5. My advice is to understand that your opponent is not Magnus Carlsen and can that they will make mistakes and you also need to know that you are able to exploit those errors. 

Your time is there to be used, the best thing to do is to literally sit on your hands until you have found what you believe to be the best move. 

Wow, great job! When I played my first OTB tournament, I got 2 out of 6. Which sounds pretty good for my first game, except when you consider that one of my two points was from a bye!  Could you possibly post one of the games you played, so that I could analyse it (or try to) and give you feedback? Again, congratulations on you tournament and I hope you continue to be successful!

Thanks so much, Bobo! I appreciate the offer, but unfortunately I didn't notate any of my games and they were not posted online, so I have no way of showing you the game. Thanks though!