Tips for live tournaments, from a PRO player
Exactly a month ago I played one of the first live tournaments in a long time and it was quite an experience, in every sense actually but also a good learning experience that leads me to write this post with some thoughts

In that tournament there were several quite strong players, a great majority were amateurs but one never knows how they will play on the board with all the information and how strong people become playing online on the platforms available.

But on the list there was one player, an old wolf who swept everyone who passed by his table, after a round I started talking to him to ask him for advice to improve on the board, and well it has been one of the most productive conversations of those days

Learn your openings, really

70% of the games at the amateur level are decided in the opening, it sounds tedious to start reading all the possible variations that exist but even in national competitions many of the games are decided in those first moments, so it is good to understand both the moves and the plans of the position in your opening preference

Manage time wisely

I asked if this advice was for blitz or rapid tournaments but it seems that there are also many problems with time management in the classics among young players, sometimes we take a long time analyzing some plans and this also goes with the opening, saving time becomes very important if we want to get further ahead in the game with time to analyze where we need it most, then in the tournament I will realize that this is the best advice

Keep it simple

Sometimes in the games there is a position where we have many candidate moves that we can make and we spend a lot of energy and time, here the master encouraged me to keep things simple if there is no decisive move or some maneuver that helps us win the position, it is something that over time one comes to learn but it is good to hear it from a pro