tournament preparation help

Hi friends I am a passive chess player and I

haved played chess for more than 3yrs but

now I am willing to become a active

tournament player I have played few local

tournaments but now I am planning to play

my first rated tournament below 1600 and I

am eager to get rating I have 2 weeks left

for the tournament to start please give me

your valuable suggestions to get prepared

for the tournament as far as now I am

strong in white with colle zukertot but what

makes me worry is I realy don't have an repoteri for black is there any similar openings for black ku colle zukertot which is easy to learn and less time consuming and how should I prepare for tournament concentrating on openings or tactics. time control of the tournament is 1 hour each and how should I use the time because I generally play short games and I don't go for coaching I prepare my self with chess books ,videos and online game. please help me out to solve these ptoblems

experienced players please give me your suggestions to get rating in below 1600 fide tournament

60 mins time control is a lot of time! don't worry about openings (most of the time your opponent will play an opening that you haven't prepared for unless you have information on how your opponent will play) and take your time, especially with 1 hour. There is no set "use this amount of time per move." Just try to find the best move and you'll do fine. If your opponent plays fast, don't get carry into it. If you can play solid and seize on your opponent's mistakes, then you will most likely win the game very shortly.

For example, I played in a 45 min time control tournament, my opponent rushed his game using about 1 min per move and less, I spent an average of 3-4 mins after our opening game, and my opponent lost in less than 15 mins.

Remember: if you have time after each game, analyze your game with your opponent or yourself, and go through it carefully move by move so that you won't make mistakes next time. If you lose a game, pick yourself up, find your mistakes (not just in chess, but psychological mistakes too), and try to play better.

Natalia Pogonia on chess.com has a lot of great articles that might help you. Her "Analysis" article has a lot of great advices.

I would also say: don't worry about your opponent's rating too much and just try to play well. In my last tournament, a 1400 rated player was playing at about 2000 level (he's 2000+ on chess.com) and beat a lot of 1700+ players to win the U1600 prize--ratings can be misleading about the player's strength.

Like in my previous post: take your time solving chess puzzles to get use to calculating well. 


An advice from my coach (an Expert--2000+ player): "analyze your game" and this means all of your current game online. There is no other way to more quickly improve at chess then noticing your own mistakes, your opponent's mistakes, alternative moves or plans, and most importantly: the experience of simply thinking through a chess game carefully. 

@fanxiong thanks friend your suggestions are helpfull.

two weeks is quite a short period of time. I suggest you stick to two openings that youre familar with, one against d4 and the other for e4. Familiarize yourself with the schemes youre opening produces and find the phase of the opening that youre comfortable with, say tactical complicatioins or simplified ones.goof lck