Chess tournament preparation checklist
The week before
- Play a few games at the tournament time control
- Review your main repertoire lines, not new ones
- Fix your sleep schedule to the round times
The night before each round
- Check the pairing as soon as it's published
- Spend 20–30 minutes scouting your opponent's openings and weak spots
- Decide one line per colour and stop
Between rounds
- Eat, walk, don't analyse your loss for an hour
- Prep the next opponent: a 5-report pack covers a whole weekend swiss
Scout your next opponent →