Prepared Opponents, Hotel Room Ramen, and Lost Rating
In case you happened upon here randomly, allow me to introduce myself. I'm an adult improver (1571 CFC, 1830 FIDE, 2150-2200 Lichess Rapid / 2050 Chess.com Rapid) who is very serious about trying to improve. I stream chess online and have a YouTube channel where I document my journey of trying to improve and increase my rating.
From February 17th, 2024 to February 19th, 2024, I participated in the 2024 BC Open, which was a 6-round classical OTB tournament and made thorough video recaps of every round, including background stories of of my opponents (for example, I had an opponent who prepared against me). I also have a little bit of extra footage such as arriving to the tournament, what the tournament playing hall looks like, and a tour of my hotel room.
I'm sharing this here as I thought some similar-minded people may be interested, particularly other adult improvers like myself, or those who have never played in an OTB tournament.
I played in the U1800 section. Please enjoy the videos from the tournament below:
Spoiler below (in case you don't want spoilers and haven't watched all the videos yet) -:
This was a disappointing tournament for me. I lost a lot of rating, and lost 2 games in a silly manner. The 3rd loss was tough, with my opponent having prepared for me, and also only making a single inaccuracy the whole game.
After my 3rd loss, I had to then endure the long trip home with my tail between my legs. It's tough, but the highs of having a good tournament usually make up for the lows of having a bad one.
