u/FireEatingDragons

Over the weekend, I played my first OTB tournament — 90+30 time control in the Under 1800 section and it was a real eye-opener. I thought I was strong because of my online ratings and a couple of wins against titled players online, but OTB really exposed my weaknesses, especially my calculation.

I was struggling against players rated around 1600. My main issue was playing too fast. Bullet and blitz have completely corrupted my thinking. I instantly realized that my artificial moves and cheap tricks wouldn’t work OTB. I started 0/3 before I finally adjusted and finished on 50%.

At first, I went into every game with the usual all-out attacking style that works online because opponents don’t have time to think. But OTB, my opponents would just sit there for 20 minutes and calmly refute everything.

My first rating is now 1550, but honestly, now I know exactly what I need to work on: CALCULATION. I have calculation book by Sam Shankland sitting on my shelf that I never even opened. That’s what I’ll focus on now.

My advice: if you’ve never played OTB, do it. It’ll show you exactly what you actually need to improve.

the culture shock is real, i feel like nairobians are 5 years ahead of everyone else, i even fear talking to strangers for not sounding dumb, moving in cbd im self aware i feel like everyone is looking at me for coming from 'shags' , i went to a computer shop to ask for a wireless mouse, the lady gave me one, i asked how long does the battery last, she looked at me in shock, then she looked at the other lady and they smirked, they responded in english by they way, i asked in swahili, that its rechargeable, their body language was the worst ive ever seen, like they telling me i dont belong here, but anyway ive lived here for 2 months now, got a lot to catch up[ apologies for my bad english]

edit; im totally moved by the amount of posiive comments and encouragements, i expected to be laughed and mocked, thanks to each one of you