Here's a little tip I learned from Graham Wolfe.
Boxer leans back really far when he's in the standing block position. His sprite is actually a few pixels further away than when he is crouching. So if you have your super charged, and are waiting for your opponent to throw a fireball, you can use this to your advantage to get a few extra frames.
What you do is sit in the crouching back position, as you normally would (to charge down and back). When you see your opponent throw a fireball, move the stick to the standing back position, and THEN do your super motion. You'll have a few extra frames to do the super before the fireball hits you, and a few extra frames is a big deal!
Sunday, July 27, 2008
Friday, June 27, 2008
Pacific Northwest Summer Majors
Tomorrow is the pacific northwest majors! It will be a lot of fun! It looks like last winter's tournament attracted enough attention that we will have some Canadian players coming down.
Since the event is in Seattle, I'll be bringing my cabinet there. The thing is *very* heavy, but I have two friends coming to help move it. Sacha and I barely got it up the stairs when I first had it delivered over a year ago, but we were only two. Hopefully having three people will make a difference.
I'm still not sure who to play. It's been about a year since I started playing Dictator. He's by far my favorite character, but I still don't feel really "tournament worthy" with him. I still feel that when push comes to shove, I'm better off playing Claw or Boxer, my old staples. Case in point, at Evo I didn't play a single round of Dictator. Now if the tournament were on my cabinet, I might seriously consider playing him. I've found that I land my combos much more reliably on the cabinet. I'm pretty sure that there is a speed difference between Dreamcast and Arcade, and since most tournaments are on Dreamcast these days, but I only have the cabinet at home to practice, my timing is off. Combos matter much more with Dictator than they do with Boxer or Claw, so I really feel that my expected win percentage goes down a lot on Dreamcast.
I'm also interested in following the news of the ST:HDR beta on 360. I don't plan on getting the beta, but I'll be interested in seeing it at Zach's tournament tonight. From what I've read on SRK, it sounds like Ken is pretty ridiculous. That's funny, because Ken seemed really scary when I read about his list of changes :). Hopefully he will be toned down in the final build -- then again everything is changing so much that it's hard to find a point of reference. Who knows what "too good" means when everyone has been buffed up to the "too good" level anyways?
Since the event is in Seattle, I'll be bringing my cabinet there. The thing is *very* heavy, but I have two friends coming to help move it. Sacha and I barely got it up the stairs when I first had it delivered over a year ago, but we were only two. Hopefully having three people will make a difference.
I'm still not sure who to play. It's been about a year since I started playing Dictator. He's by far my favorite character, but I still don't feel really "tournament worthy" with him. I still feel that when push comes to shove, I'm better off playing Claw or Boxer, my old staples. Case in point, at Evo I didn't play a single round of Dictator. Now if the tournament were on my cabinet, I might seriously consider playing him. I've found that I land my combos much more reliably on the cabinet. I'm pretty sure that there is a speed difference between Dreamcast and Arcade, and since most tournaments are on Dreamcast these days, but I only have the cabinet at home to practice, my timing is off. Combos matter much more with Dictator than they do with Boxer or Claw, so I really feel that my expected win percentage goes down a lot on Dreamcast.
I'm also interested in following the news of the ST:HDR beta on 360. I don't plan on getting the beta, but I'll be interested in seeing it at Zach's tournament tonight. From what I've read on SRK, it sounds like Ken is pretty ridiculous. That's funny, because Ken seemed really scary when I read about his list of changes :). Hopefully he will be toned down in the final build -- then again everything is changing so much that it's hard to find a point of reference. Who knows what "too good" means when everyone has been buffed up to the "too good" level anyways?
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Random Select Winter Showdown
I've been meaning to write up a post about the Random Select Winter Showdown (Pacific Northwest Regionals), after Pablo wrote a post about the experience. I wanted to wait until videos were up, so that I could look at them, and analyze how I could do better.
First of all, I want to congratulate Pablo and Alex for doing an amazing job. Pablo went undefeated through the winners bracket until the finals. Alex beat RayBladeX, an excellent Boxer, and previous top 8er at Evo, not just once, but twice -- in the winners bracket and in the losers bracket. In fact, I think I owe the tournament to Alex. I played Ray Boxer v Boxer in the 5 on 5 exhibition match afterwards, and he trounced me. Alex's Guile has improved dramatically in the last 6 months. Congratulations.
Here is my winners finals match with Pablo (I am playing Dictator)
Here is the grand finals, with Alex (I am playing Dictator/Chun Li)
Reviewing these matches, one thing I notice immediately about my play is that I'm missing a lot of combo opportunities. There are several points where Alex whiffs a flash kick, where I should be able to do standing short, low forward, scissor kick. Even just low forward into scissor kick would be simple and damaging. Yet I find myself not doing this basic combo properly -- a combo I can do in my sleep in casual matches.
One way I can improve then, is to simply get better at execution. It's easy to fall into the trap of only practicing high end, difficult combos. But failing bread and butter combos like the ones I mention above can cost the match. I think my problem is that since I "know" that I can do them already, I don't bother practicing. But then when it's tournament time, I miss the opportunities I am given.
When I played in Japan, I remmeber playing against Kurahashi and getting *one* chance like that a game, if I was lucky. High end play requires maximizing these chances every time, and I need to do better there.
First of all, I want to congratulate Pablo and Alex for doing an amazing job. Pablo went undefeated through the winners bracket until the finals. Alex beat RayBladeX, an excellent Boxer, and previous top 8er at Evo, not just once, but twice -- in the winners bracket and in the losers bracket. In fact, I think I owe the tournament to Alex. I played Ray Boxer v Boxer in the 5 on 5 exhibition match afterwards, and he trounced me. Alex's Guile has improved dramatically in the last 6 months. Congratulations.
Here is my winners finals match with Pablo (I am playing Dictator)
Here is the grand finals, with Alex (I am playing Dictator/Chun Li)
Reviewing these matches, one thing I notice immediately about my play is that I'm missing a lot of combo opportunities. There are several points where Alex whiffs a flash kick, where I should be able to do standing short, low forward, scissor kick. Even just low forward into scissor kick would be simple and damaging. Yet I find myself not doing this basic combo properly -- a combo I can do in my sleep in casual matches.
One way I can improve then, is to simply get better at execution. It's easy to fall into the trap of only practicing high end, difficult combos. But failing bread and butter combos like the ones I mention above can cost the match. I think my problem is that since I "know" that I can do them already, I don't bother practicing. But then when it's tournament time, I miss the opportunities I am given.
When I played in Japan, I remmeber playing against Kurahashi and getting *one* chance like that a game, if I was lucky. High end play requires maximizing these chances every time, and I need to do better there.
Sunday, December 30, 2007
Tournament website
I've been spending the last few weekends working on a new project, my Super Turbo Rankings Website. I've finally launched an alpha release. I haven't worked on any styling, right now it's just functionality over form.
I've also taken this opportunity to explore coding in ruby on rails. I could have done this in Perl, which is a language I've developed in professionally, but I thought I'd take this chance to try something new and learn a new language and framework. I was extremely impressed by Ruby, and by the Rails framework. I think it actually took me less time in RoR, even taking in the learning curve, than it would have taken me in Perl!
I want to describe the application a little bit. There are two main pages, the players page and the tournaments page. The tournaments page shows you a list of tournaments, and you can click on a tournament to view details about that tournament. Click on any player name you see to be taken to that player's information page. Right now I only support double elimination tournaments, and I plan on having support for single elimination, round robin, and just a random collection of matches.
On the players page, you can see a list of players ordered by handle. It also shows you the players' TrueSkill ranking. If you click on that player's profile, you can see more information about how their ranking came to be, including a history of all their matches, and how their ranking evolved over time. There's also a graph showing how their ranking has evolved over time.
Your ranking is defined by two numbers, your mu and your sigma. These two numbers define a probability curve. Your ranking is somewhere under that curve, with the most likely ranking being the mu value. The sigma is a representation of your uncertainty. If you have a small simga, your curve is tall and narrow (like the red curve below). If your sigma is high, you have a short and fat curve (like the greed curve below).
Your total level is mu - 3*(sigma). This is a conservative estimate of the actual level , meaning your actual level is probably much higher. This prevents people from winning one tournament, and then being at the top of the rankings forever. Such a player would have a high mu but a low sigma. We don't want that player to be more highly ranked than someone that does well consistently.
I plan to add a plot showing the distribution curve of their ranking.
I also show how a player's ranking evolves over time.
Here's a sample graph:
As expected, the red curve (mu), is always higher than the green curve (level). Also, as expected, as the player plays more games, the level approaches the mu more closely. This is because the player's sigma value goes down over time.
I think this should be a fun way to compare the skill of two players who have never played each other. It's also good to have a detailed record of tournaments. I don't think we have the full brackets for older tournaments (like old Evos), but we can enter the data we do have, and see how the numbers shake out. It is my hope that in the future, this will become the comprehensive site for ST tournament records.
I've also taken this opportunity to explore coding in ruby on rails. I could have done this in Perl, which is a language I've developed in professionally, but I thought I'd take this chance to try something new and learn a new language and framework. I was extremely impressed by Ruby, and by the Rails framework. I think it actually took me less time in RoR, even taking in the learning curve, than it would have taken me in Perl!
I want to describe the application a little bit. There are two main pages, the players page and the tournaments page. The tournaments page shows you a list of tournaments, and you can click on a tournament to view details about that tournament. Click on any player name you see to be taken to that player's information page. Right now I only support double elimination tournaments, and I plan on having support for single elimination, round robin, and just a random collection of matches.
On the players page, you can see a list of players ordered by handle. It also shows you the players' TrueSkill ranking. If you click on that player's profile, you can see more information about how their ranking came to be, including a history of all their matches, and how their ranking evolved over time. There's also a graph showing how their ranking has evolved over time.
Your ranking is defined by two numbers, your mu and your sigma. These two numbers define a probability curve. Your ranking is somewhere under that curve, with the most likely ranking being the mu value. The sigma is a representation of your uncertainty. If you have a small simga, your curve is tall and narrow (like the red curve below). If your sigma is high, you have a short and fat curve (like the greed curve below).
Your total level is mu - 3*(sigma). This is a conservative estimate of the actual level , meaning your actual level is probably much higher. This prevents people from winning one tournament, and then being at the top of the rankings forever. Such a player would have a high mu but a low sigma. We don't want that player to be more highly ranked than someone that does well consistently.
I plan to add a plot showing the distribution curve of their ranking.
I also show how a player's ranking evolves over time.
Here's a sample graph:
As expected, the red curve (mu), is always higher than the green curve (level). Also, as expected, as the player plays more games, the level approaches the mu more closely. This is because the player's sigma value goes down over time.
I think this should be a fun way to compare the skill of two players who have never played each other. It's also good to have a detailed record of tournaments. I don't think we have the full brackets for older tournaments (like old Evos), but we can enter the data we do have, and see how the numbers shake out. It is my hope that in the future, this will become the comprehensive site for ST tournament records.
Monday, November 12, 2007
Rebalanced mode and fake fireballs
I'd like to comment a bit on the decision to give ryu a fake fireball in ST rebalanced mode.
Before I start, I want to say that I disagree with the premise of how capcom/backbone is choosing to address the rebalancing. As they mentioned in the first blog post
I don't disagree with the idea that power levels need to change. What I do disagree with is keeping the top tier intact, and "buffing up" so that lower and mid tier characters are higher in power.
As I mentioned before, I think that the way to do it is to keep the "core" tier intact, and bring the power levels closer together by slightly reducing the power of the top tier characters, so that they are still very good, but missing the really broken stuff, and then buffing up the low tier slightly.
I think the core tier characters are:
Ryu
Ken
Guile
DeeJay
Ryu and Guile especially stand out to me as examples of excellent design. They are both extremely strong in the best hands, but no one would call them the best characters. They are the epitome of skill rewarding play. Players that win tournaments with ryu or guile are just plain good.
I think it's a much better design decision to keep these core characters they way they are, and bring the rest around them. You actually end up changing fewer characters this way: In both systems, you have to help the lowest tier. However, in the "keep the core" system(that I am a proponent of), you only have to bring the top tier down, which is four characters (Claw, Dhalsim, Boxer, and Sagat). On the other hand, in the "buff people up" system, you have to bring the entire middle tier up. Since the middle tier is much larger than the top tier, you touch more characters.
The other reason I think that the "buff up" system is wrong is highlighted in this quote from David Sirlin:
As I mentioned on srk.com, I don't think that the game at the top tier is nearly as fun as the game at the mid-tier!
The mid tier's fights are more exciting, more deep, and reward decision making better than the fights at the top tier. Changing the mid-tier is dangerous, because you risk losing those great mid-tier fights that I think really define the game.
So that said, I disagree that Ryu should be given any changes, because I think Ryu and his core compatriots are perfect as is.
That said, that is a disagreement with the premise of the change, which is the "buff up" system. I disagree with the "buff up" system, and I think the right call is the "keep the core" system, for the reasons above.
However, I'd still like to discuss the change in Ryu given the "buff up" system. So even though I disagree with the "buff up" system, I want to put aside that fact for now, and discuss what Ryu's change will do in the context of that system.
In this context, I think Ryu's fake fireball will make him stronger. This is hard to evaluate without context, because I don't know how other characters have been changed. Since I don't have that information, I have to think of how the normal ST characters would be affected. This would make Ryu more powerful at mid range, and especially more powerful in the corner. It would be even more difficult for characters like Honda, Chun Li, Dicatator, and Ken to get out of his corner traps.
There is one thing that I think is an absolute must. Ryu's fake fireball should not give him super meter. One doesn't have to look any further than SF3 to see why. SF3 is a game dominated by running away and charging meter. Players are rewarded by not interacting with their opponents, and instead doing safe moves repeatedly that charge up their meter. Once they have it, they approach their opponent.
Ryu already has one of the safest meter building moves in the game, with his jumping back hurricane kick. This is a move that at least forces Ryu to give up a resource, his position relative to the corner. But if the fake fireball built meter, Ryu would have a way to charge meter that would (presumably) be impossible to punish at mid range (if it was possible to punish at mid range, you might as well do a normal fireball, and the move would not be very useful). This would completely change Ryu's dynamic. Ryu players would have a huge incentive to do fake fireballs to charge meter, at which point they have one of the best supercombos in the game at their disposal. It would greatly sadden me to see one of the pinnacles of character design be overshadowed by a meter building strategy.
No meter for fake fireballs.
Before I start, I want to say that I disagree with the premise of how capcom/backbone is choosing to address the rebalancing. As they mentioned in the first blog post
My goal is to buff up the worst characters so they reach the middle (or upper middle at best). Next, buff the middle characters slightly, but not so much that they become top tier. And finally, leave the top tier characters intact.
I don't disagree with the idea that power levels need to change. What I do disagree with is keeping the top tier intact, and "buffing up" so that lower and mid tier characters are higher in power.
As I mentioned before, I think that the way to do it is to keep the "core" tier intact, and bring the power levels closer together by slightly reducing the power of the top tier characters, so that they are still very good, but missing the really broken stuff, and then buffing up the low tier slightly.
I think the core tier characters are:
Ryu
Ken
Guile
DeeJay
Ryu and Guile especially stand out to me as examples of excellent design. They are both extremely strong in the best hands, but no one would call them the best characters. They are the epitome of skill rewarding play. Players that win tournaments with ryu or guile are just plain good.
I think it's a much better design decision to keep these core characters they way they are, and bring the rest around them. You actually end up changing fewer characters this way: In both systems, you have to help the lowest tier. However, in the "keep the core" system(that I am a proponent of), you only have to bring the top tier down, which is four characters (Claw, Dhalsim, Boxer, and Sagat). On the other hand, in the "buff people up" system, you have to bring the entire middle tier up. Since the middle tier is much larger than the top tier, you touch more characters.
The other reason I think that the "buff up" system is wrong is highlighted in this quote from David Sirlin:
Also, as I said when I rebalanced Puzzle Fighter, we already know what the game felt like with the previous top tier characters, and it was fun, so it’s better to balance the game around that power level than a new, lower power level.
As I mentioned on srk.com, I don't think that the game at the top tier is nearly as fun as the game at the mid-tier!
I completely disagree with Toodle's position of "never nerf". Why? As a vega player, I can tell you that I've beaten very very good players with repeated wall dives. I don't think this is a fun part of the game. In fact, I've played the Japanese system of soft banning Vega and O Sagat, and you know what? The game was much more fun. And it was more fun because I didn't have to play or play against these idiotic, repeatable traps.
Chun li vs Guile is a fun, intense matchup. Every pixel of spacing matters. There's countless decisions to make. Do I block his jab sonic boom? Do I jump straight up over it? Should I try to trade with a low forward, or will he anticipate that with a backfist?
I haven't seen that kind of depth in most fights that involve O Sagat and Vega. Vega *can* be played in a powerful, complex, and dominating way, but the easiest way to just win is to do wall dives. Similarly with O Sagat's tiger shots.
I think it's high time to remove these kinds of moves. I want more fights like Chun li vs Guile, Zangief vs Hawk, Ryu vs Ken, and Dictator vs DeeJay. Those are fun, stimulating, and exciting fights. There's books to write on those fights.
I want to give Dhalsim, Claw, and O Sagat a chance to have those fights too. Getting rid of those extremely specific and abuseable moves is a great way to keep the inherent power and complexity of the character without destroying the entire game ecosystem they reside in.
The mid tier's fights are more exciting, more deep, and reward decision making better than the fights at the top tier. Changing the mid-tier is dangerous, because you risk losing those great mid-tier fights that I think really define the game.
So that said, I disagree that Ryu should be given any changes, because I think Ryu and his core compatriots are perfect as is.
That said, that is a disagreement with the premise of the change, which is the "buff up" system. I disagree with the "buff up" system, and I think the right call is the "keep the core" system, for the reasons above.
However, I'd still like to discuss the change in Ryu given the "buff up" system. So even though I disagree with the "buff up" system, I want to put aside that fact for now, and discuss what Ryu's change will do in the context of that system.
In this context, I think Ryu's fake fireball will make him stronger. This is hard to evaluate without context, because I don't know how other characters have been changed. Since I don't have that information, I have to think of how the normal ST characters would be affected. This would make Ryu more powerful at mid range, and especially more powerful in the corner. It would be even more difficult for characters like Honda, Chun Li, Dicatator, and Ken to get out of his corner traps.
There is one thing that I think is an absolute must. Ryu's fake fireball should not give him super meter. One doesn't have to look any further than SF3 to see why. SF3 is a game dominated by running away and charging meter. Players are rewarded by not interacting with their opponents, and instead doing safe moves repeatedly that charge up their meter. Once they have it, they approach their opponent.
Ryu already has one of the safest meter building moves in the game, with his jumping back hurricane kick. This is a move that at least forces Ryu to give up a resource, his position relative to the corner. But if the fake fireball built meter, Ryu would have a way to charge meter that would (presumably) be impossible to punish at mid range (if it was possible to punish at mid range, you might as well do a normal fireball, and the move would not be very useful). This would completely change Ryu's dynamic. Ryu players would have a huge incentive to do fake fireballs to charge meter, at which point they have one of the best supercombos in the game at their disposal. It would greatly sadden me to see one of the pinnacles of character design be overshadowed by a meter building strategy.
No meter for fake fireballs.
Saturday, September 8, 2007
Option selecting Psycho Crusher/Scissor Kicks
I've been playing a little bit more of dictator at my weekly gatherings, and I've realized that sometimes I just don't have enough charge for a scissor kicks combo. I realized this when I crossed over a zangief player with jumping forward, and then did three standing shorts. Usually this combos into scissor kicks but sometimes the kicks weren't coming out.
This might be because of the variables charge times in super turbo, and because dictator's scissor kicks is the longest charge time move in the game. The speed at which I press the standing shorts is probably affecting my charge time. If I did a pyscho crusher instead, I would probably have gotten that out every time, but I was greedy and going for the longer charge time pyscho crusher.
Should I stop going for crossover scissor kick combos? No! I had the idea that maybe I could go for an option select.
The idea would be:
Jump with crossup forward
Keep holding lever back
Stand short x 3
Move lever towards opponent
Press roundhouse kick and fierce punch one right after the other
If you have a long enough charge for the scissor kick, the roundhouse kick input should give you a scissor kick. However, if you don't have a long enough charge, then the roundhouse kick should come out for a very short time (1 frame or so), and then get kara cancelled into the fierce pyscho crusher!
So you get to have your cake and eat it too. You can try for the scissor kicks, but if it doesn't come out.
This can also be useful in Dictator's other standard combo
Crossover forward
Stand short x 2
Low foward
Fierce Psycho Crusher
Replace the last "Fierce Psycho Crusher" with a roundhouse instantly followed by a fierce, and you should be able to try for the more damaging combo safely.
I've tried this on my machine, and it seems to work. However, to really prove that this works, perhaps some kind reader would try it out on an emulator? I really need to learn how to set up inputs on emulators. Proving this kind of stuff would be great.
This might be because of the variables charge times in super turbo, and because dictator's scissor kicks is the longest charge time move in the game. The speed at which I press the standing shorts is probably affecting my charge time. If I did a pyscho crusher instead, I would probably have gotten that out every time, but I was greedy and going for the longer charge time pyscho crusher.
Should I stop going for crossover scissor kick combos? No! I had the idea that maybe I could go for an option select.
The idea would be:
Jump with crossup forward
Keep holding lever back
Stand short x 3
Move lever towards opponent
Press roundhouse kick and fierce punch one right after the other
If you have a long enough charge for the scissor kick, the roundhouse kick input should give you a scissor kick. However, if you don't have a long enough charge, then the roundhouse kick should come out for a very short time (1 frame or so), and then get kara cancelled into the fierce pyscho crusher!
So you get to have your cake and eat it too. You can try for the scissor kicks, but if it doesn't come out.
This can also be useful in Dictator's other standard combo
Crossover forward
Stand short x 2
Low foward
Fierce Psycho Crusher
Replace the last "Fierce Psycho Crusher" with a roundhouse instantly followed by a fierce, and you should be able to try for the more damaging combo safely.
I've tried this on my machine, and it seems to work. However, to really prove that this works, perhaps some kind reader would try it out on an emulator? I really need to learn how to set up inputs on emulators. Proving this kind of stuff would be great.
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
Evo 2007 main tournament report
I was quite happy that I had qualified, but now that I was in the main tournament, it was only going to get harder. Of the Seattle ST players, only myself and Nate Montes had qualified. Pablo had almost made it, losing a tough fight to Tony Cannon in the losers finals.
My first fight was against a player I didn't know. He was a Chun player, and I went with Claw. I won that match, and I was starting to feel good about my chances. I had four wins in a row so far!
My next match was against another player I didn't know. He played Chun li. I decided that my Chun Li was pretty good, and if I didn't know this person, he wouldn't be great. Well, in my first 20 seconds of play it was apparent that this player had amazing reflexes. He was very consistent with his reversals, hitting me every time I went for the neck breaker. The point at which I really realized that I was outclassed in the reflexes and timing department was near the end of the round. I had a super charged, and threw a jab fireball. He jumped over it, and I used the stored super trick to hit him as anti air. I saw the blue flash of my super, and then saw ANOTHER blue flash. He landed and counter supered me for the win. Now that I think about it, he must have stored his super and jumped, pressing kick when he landed to hit me. I don't know if I mistimed my super and did it too late, or if that's a legitimate counter, but either way, I was very impressed by his timing.
I was a bit shaken by this loss. I could still salvage the match though. Should I go with Claw or Boxer? I went with Boxer. We played a very close set, and at the end of the third round we both had zero life. His low forward hit me and won the game and match.
Afterwards, I learned that this unknown player is Buktooth, one of the top CvS2 players. I should have stuck to my guns and not changed tracks simply because I didn't know my opponent. Regardless, I was very impressed by Buktooth's innate talent.
Now that I was in the losers bracket, things would get rough. In the losers bracket you advance twice as slowly as in the winners bracket, so that means you have to work twice as hard to go the same distance. It sucks! Plus, there were many good players in the losers bracket. Many many extremely good players were there, because the brackets were set up in such a way that they had to fight each other in the winners bracket early on. I wasn't very happy being there so early, and I resolved to play without mercy and without underestimating any opponent (something I should have done in the winners bracket).
My first opponent in the losers bracket was a player that I didn't know (I've just learned that his nickname on SRK is "shirts"). He picked old Dhalsim, and I was able to win with my standard anti dhalsim strategy. I used a Claw trick that I had been practicing for a while against his Dhalsim, and I was happy to see it pay off in this situation.
After winning against Shirts, my name was announced again. My opponent was OhNuki. My heart sunk. Ohnuki had won SBO (the largest Japanese tournament) a mere month before this event, winning with a perfect against YuuVega, one of Japan's deadliest players. Additionally, I had played against Ohnuki in a tournament when I lived in Japan. This was on a different game, Street Fighter Alpha 3 instead of Super Turbo, but Ohnuki devastated me. Gian had called him one of Japan's five "God Players", along with Tokido and Umehara. I was done for, and I knew it. I picked Claw for my first match. I know that Ohnuki is a great player, and Claw should stay on the ground in this match. My twisted logic was that since Ohnuki was so good, I shouldn't do the BEST moves against him, because he would clearly be too good for that. Instead I should do BAD moves and try to suprise him with wall jumps. This is an idiotic strategy. It's called outhinking yourself or pysching yourself out. It's what bad players do against good players to make themselves play even worse. I lost all of my rounds to Ohnuki, and pretty badly.
So that was it for me. I wasn't super happy with my tied for 25-32nd place. I felt like I could have beaten Buktooth if I had played smarter in the metagame, even though he has more raw talent than me, I think I could have won with Claw if I had picked him.
That evening, I thought a lot about my mindset for Evo, how I felt before and how I felt afterwards. I had been trying to objectively look at my performance, taking my ego out of it. This is something that is hard for me to do, but something that is essential to being a good player. I was especially motivated by an interview I read with Muteki guile, and one of the things that he said was that he looked at every loss and tried to learn why it happened, and to learn from it. So objectively, I would rate myself as "good but not great". I did "well" in casuals before the tournament, I won my qualifying pool, but I lost decisively to one of Japan's top players, and I also lost to a very talented american player. I want to think about my mindset, and how it affects my play.
In order to do this, I need to look at how my mindset and self evaluation has changed over time. Before I moved to Japan, I considered myself "very good". I didn't think there was anyone that was better than me. Sure, there were people that beat me, or did better than me in tournaments, but in my "heart of hearts", I was certain that if I practiced enough, I could beat anyone. I felt that my ability to learn, and ability to impose my will on my opponent was as strong or stronger than anyone elses, and that although my execution wasn't naturally great, that I had the ability to excecute anything if I really put the time into it. Part of this self evaluation was reinforced by my tournament performance. I did fairly well in tournaments, and there was no player that I had never beaten. There were players that did consistently better than me, but I had been able to beat those players both in tournaments and in casual, and I didn't feel that I couldn't do it again.
After I moved to Japan, my mindset changed. The Japanese players were just so much better than me. When I played at MORE arcade, there were players I simply could not beat. I lost to MORE's "Sky High Claw" player 20 games to 0, in the Boxer vs Claw matchup, something I was certain I would win every time. In Japan, I almost never won tournaments (except one). After a while, I changed my mindset. I started playing for the enjoyment of the game, and I didn't have any illusions of being anything other than an "okay" player. I could win in arcades, but I was nowhere near the level of the top players there.
But now, my mindset has changed again, and twice during this tournament. After my loss to Ohnuki I really felt like I was never going to be good.. but watching Graham play in the finals really inspired me. He completely destroyed Gian and Ohnuki. Graham did everything that I should have done against Ohnuki. He stayed on the ground. He played smart. He didn't lose his cool. He didn't change his strategy because of fear of another player. Graham was amazing. Watching Graham has made me come to the conclusion that I can do that well too. I'm not the best ST player, but I am good, and I can use my head to be even better. I've gone from disappointed in my performance to energized and inspired that I can do better next year.
Finally, there is one additional way in which my mindset has changed. When I lived in the US before moving to Japan, I really cared about my own performance. So much so that if I identified another player as a possible threat to my own tournament results, I would not want that other player to improve. After I was eliminated from the main tournament, I saw that a former classmate of mine at MIT, David Sirlin, was in the top 8. David uses Claw. I thought about the two Claw tricks that I had practiced for the last weeks, the tricks that I had hoped would win me the tournament. My old self would have just kept them a secret, and used them next year. But this time I thought to myself that I should wish my friend luck, and give him every opportunity to win. He's a great player, and telling him this could certainly hurt me at a future date. But at this point, I wanted to wish my friend luck and success, and so I told him everything. I'm happy that I can be competitive at this game, and play to really win, but I'm also happy that I'm not so competitive that I won't share and discuss strategies with people that have the potential to do better than me. I'm glad that I've changed for the better in this respect.
My first fight was against a player I didn't know. He was a Chun player, and I went with Claw. I won that match, and I was starting to feel good about my chances. I had four wins in a row so far!
My next match was against another player I didn't know. He played Chun li. I decided that my Chun Li was pretty good, and if I didn't know this person, he wouldn't be great. Well, in my first 20 seconds of play it was apparent that this player had amazing reflexes. He was very consistent with his reversals, hitting me every time I went for the neck breaker. The point at which I really realized that I was outclassed in the reflexes and timing department was near the end of the round. I had a super charged, and threw a jab fireball. He jumped over it, and I used the stored super trick to hit him as anti air. I saw the blue flash of my super, and then saw ANOTHER blue flash. He landed and counter supered me for the win. Now that I think about it, he must have stored his super and jumped, pressing kick when he landed to hit me. I don't know if I mistimed my super and did it too late, or if that's a legitimate counter, but either way, I was very impressed by his timing.
I was a bit shaken by this loss. I could still salvage the match though. Should I go with Claw or Boxer? I went with Boxer. We played a very close set, and at the end of the third round we both had zero life. His low forward hit me and won the game and match.
Afterwards, I learned that this unknown player is Buktooth, one of the top CvS2 players. I should have stuck to my guns and not changed tracks simply because I didn't know my opponent. Regardless, I was very impressed by Buktooth's innate talent.
Now that I was in the losers bracket, things would get rough. In the losers bracket you advance twice as slowly as in the winners bracket, so that means you have to work twice as hard to go the same distance. It sucks! Plus, there were many good players in the losers bracket. Many many extremely good players were there, because the brackets were set up in such a way that they had to fight each other in the winners bracket early on. I wasn't very happy being there so early, and I resolved to play without mercy and without underestimating any opponent (something I should have done in the winners bracket).
My first opponent in the losers bracket was a player that I didn't know (I've just learned that his nickname on SRK is "shirts"). He picked old Dhalsim, and I was able to win with my standard anti dhalsim strategy. I used a Claw trick that I had been practicing for a while against his Dhalsim, and I was happy to see it pay off in this situation.
After winning against Shirts, my name was announced again. My opponent was OhNuki. My heart sunk. Ohnuki had won SBO (the largest Japanese tournament) a mere month before this event, winning with a perfect against YuuVega, one of Japan's deadliest players. Additionally, I had played against Ohnuki in a tournament when I lived in Japan. This was on a different game, Street Fighter Alpha 3 instead of Super Turbo, but Ohnuki devastated me. Gian had called him one of Japan's five "God Players", along with Tokido and Umehara. I was done for, and I knew it. I picked Claw for my first match. I know that Ohnuki is a great player, and Claw should stay on the ground in this match. My twisted logic was that since Ohnuki was so good, I shouldn't do the BEST moves against him, because he would clearly be too good for that. Instead I should do BAD moves and try to suprise him with wall jumps. This is an idiotic strategy. It's called outhinking yourself or pysching yourself out. It's what bad players do against good players to make themselves play even worse. I lost all of my rounds to Ohnuki, and pretty badly.
So that was it for me. I wasn't super happy with my tied for 25-32nd place. I felt like I could have beaten Buktooth if I had played smarter in the metagame, even though he has more raw talent than me, I think I could have won with Claw if I had picked him.
That evening, I thought a lot about my mindset for Evo, how I felt before and how I felt afterwards. I had been trying to objectively look at my performance, taking my ego out of it. This is something that is hard for me to do, but something that is essential to being a good player. I was especially motivated by an interview I read with Muteki guile, and one of the things that he said was that he looked at every loss and tried to learn why it happened, and to learn from it. So objectively, I would rate myself as "good but not great". I did "well" in casuals before the tournament, I won my qualifying pool, but I lost decisively to one of Japan's top players, and I also lost to a very talented american player. I want to think about my mindset, and how it affects my play.
In order to do this, I need to look at how my mindset and self evaluation has changed over time. Before I moved to Japan, I considered myself "very good". I didn't think there was anyone that was better than me. Sure, there were people that beat me, or did better than me in tournaments, but in my "heart of hearts", I was certain that if I practiced enough, I could beat anyone. I felt that my ability to learn, and ability to impose my will on my opponent was as strong or stronger than anyone elses, and that although my execution wasn't naturally great, that I had the ability to excecute anything if I really put the time into it. Part of this self evaluation was reinforced by my tournament performance. I did fairly well in tournaments, and there was no player that I had never beaten. There were players that did consistently better than me, but I had been able to beat those players both in tournaments and in casual, and I didn't feel that I couldn't do it again.
After I moved to Japan, my mindset changed. The Japanese players were just so much better than me. When I played at MORE arcade, there were players I simply could not beat. I lost to MORE's "Sky High Claw" player 20 games to 0, in the Boxer vs Claw matchup, something I was certain I would win every time. In Japan, I almost never won tournaments (except one). After a while, I changed my mindset. I started playing for the enjoyment of the game, and I didn't have any illusions of being anything other than an "okay" player. I could win in arcades, but I was nowhere near the level of the top players there.
But now, my mindset has changed again, and twice during this tournament. After my loss to Ohnuki I really felt like I was never going to be good.. but watching Graham play in the finals really inspired me. He completely destroyed Gian and Ohnuki. Graham did everything that I should have done against Ohnuki. He stayed on the ground. He played smart. He didn't lose his cool. He didn't change his strategy because of fear of another player. Graham was amazing. Watching Graham has made me come to the conclusion that I can do that well too. I'm not the best ST player, but I am good, and I can use my head to be even better. I've gone from disappointed in my performance to energized and inspired that I can do better next year.
Finally, there is one additional way in which my mindset has changed. When I lived in the US before moving to Japan, I really cared about my own performance. So much so that if I identified another player as a possible threat to my own tournament results, I would not want that other player to improve. After I was eliminated from the main tournament, I saw that a former classmate of mine at MIT, David Sirlin, was in the top 8. David uses Claw. I thought about the two Claw tricks that I had practiced for the last weeks, the tricks that I had hoped would win me the tournament. My old self would have just kept them a secret, and used them next year. But this time I thought to myself that I should wish my friend luck, and give him every opportunity to win. He's a great player, and telling him this could certainly hurt me at a future date. But at this point, I wanted to wish my friend luck and success, and so I told him everything. I'm happy that I can be competitive at this game, and play to really win, but I'm also happy that I'm not so competitive that I won't share and discuss strategies with people that have the potential to do better than me. I'm glad that I've changed for the better in this respect.
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