Prep for Tournament of Champions

I was in AC over the weekend and decided to play in a poker tournament. This was my first live tournament ever and I hadn't played poker since my online account was frozen years ago.

I ended up winning the tournament. It was small, 35 entrants, but now I'm invited to a free-roll tournament of champions next month ($15k guaranteed).

Do you have any advice on how I should prepare? Is this a fluke or do I have some raw talent that is worth trying to hone? Thanks in advance.

Read a ton of books/strategy articles/etc.

Personally I recommend starting out with Mathematics of Poker to get a primer of how poker strategy works, then delve into more specialized tournament play strategy.

Thanks, I've only got about 20 days. So I should read a few books? Should I play another tournament or just do absolutely nothing, as this worked last time?

I'd try to play some tournaments in the interim so as to shake off as much rust as possible. As for further preparations, it might help if you can find out what levels of players you'll be facing.

Don't assume that what you did last time will work again. Tournaments are high variance and the likelihood is that you just ran good, won your flips, didn't get in too many gross spots and played great along the way. But there's nothing wrong with playing again and trying to learn more as well as reading stuff or watching videos.

play play play imho

Thanks for the advice guys, I'll try and play as much as possible before the tournament.

I'll let you know where I finish.

I would just play as much as you can and enjoy the tourney when it comes.