Art of Preparation

How to prepare for the tournament

Chess as we all know is a game of strategies. When do strategies begin? For some, it begins when the opening ends. While for few others, it started long before the first move. Today I am in the mood to write something about preparing for the tournament. Preparation is one such strategies. The winning person is a better prepared person. And it's a type of preparation before the tournament as well as those before an individual game.

Preparing before the tournament

The most effective method as far as I am concerned is the old method i.e solving combinations. Not all combinations but the type of puzzles that goes a long way like an actual game which means not like two/three mover type. And it should last at least 90 minutes as in actual game. This method forced you to be calculative.

The other method is my favorite, the opening preparation. It's a joy to see my opponent out of book before I do. That's a kind of upper hand we should always look out for. Many are of the opinion that openings for players below master level is a waste of time and energy. I disagree. There are games decided right out of the opening.

Playing a training game just for warm up to remove spider web from your brain. It could be OTB or online. The thing is play some games. But as a caution, don't overdo it. Some experts even believe that not doing anything at all related to chess just few days before the tournament is ideal. The very idea of course is to have a burning desire to play again like a smoker who quit temporarily and then smokes heavily.

Preparing before a game

This is mostly done during the tournament before the rounds. Here you have quite a lot of information at your disposal. You know the opponent, his name, rating, style of play etc. Now what? Do you already smell victory? 

The problem here though is that your opponent had the same information about you. Instead of us surprising our opponent, our opponent would surprise us. This is the thing we should prevent. But be confident and play what you know best. Running away not to get caught from opponent's preparation is often not the best choice. It's even a disgrace for few people who always believed that "If it's a challenge, my answer is yes." This type of attitude is rare but there. 

Nothing matters except your performance. As Shakespeare puts it, " All is well that ends well "