EPTFirst of all, a little bit about myself...
I'm Wormster, a silver protoss player on EU server. I've been playing since beta and was in bronze up until halfway through season 3 and I've been silver ever since. In that time, I've been jumping from race to race like nobodies business (who knows if I'll actually stick with toss this time) but I thought I'd give toss another chance thanks to d.Apollo's awesome tutorial series on youtube and it's been working out pretty well so far with a 7 game win streak!.
In all the time I've been playing this beloved game, I'd been meaning to enter an online tournament. Even though I know I'm pretty terrible, I just wanted a bit of meaningful competition to really see where I was at. For one reason or another, I never got round to it but after seeing the bronze-gold tournament on scvrush.com last night, I thought I would finally pluck up the courage and give it a whirl. What else are you gonna do on a Wednesday night, eh?
7pm rolls around, the brackets have finally been announced and the tournament was starting. I start out with a bye to the second round which is always a nice start. Then I notice that I've been matched against a gold protoss. I started worrying straight away as I'd really been struggling with PvP earlier that day. I usually open with a 3 stalker rush into 3 gate robo and I think the reason I struggle quite so much is the microing of the stalkers. My mechanics and multitasking are pretty horrible which doesn't suit a build like that very well at all. It was then I decided I'd just go straight up 3 gate robo and really get some solid macro going.
The game starts and we're on MLG shattered temple. My opening is going absolutely superbly and everything is lining up perfectly. I scout with the probe after building the cybernetics core and find him straight away. His zealot takes a swing as I scoot past him and scout only 1 gate and a cyber core so far. After only scouting 1 gas, my heart skips a beat and, as I move into the corner of his base, I see the 3 other gates go down.
The rest of the game went by in a bit of a haze. I only had 1 sentry, 2 stalkers and a zealot when his first round of units hit. With some awesome stalker micro that I didn't know I had in me, I manage to wipe out the first round of his units and start work on the 2 pylons he'd warped in at the edge of my base. 3 more stalkers started to make their way up my ramp and, in a game-saving moment, I forcefield the ramp just in time to stop his units warping onto my high ground. Just at that moment, my immortal pops and the 4 gate is shut down.From there it was a matter of warping in another round of units and pushing for the win! The adrenaline rush I got from winning that game was absolutely incredible and I still can't believe I managed to pull off the win. From that point on, I didn't care what happened in the tourney because I had my first win at my first ever tournament and boy did it feel good :D
The next round didn't go so well unfortunately. A PvZ on Metalopolis which I wasn't prepared for (I thought my opponent was going to be terran for some reason...) saw me crushed by ling infestor. It certainly didn't help that my hands were still shaking from the last game!
I found my first tournament experience to be a very enjoyable one. As fun as playing on the ladder is, it certainly doesn't come close to the excitement of playing in a competition. This may have been my first tournament but, seeing how good that first win made me feel, it certainly will not be my last.
Keep it up, sounds like the motivations there now to compete/improve 
