From Tetra’s Blog:

Just returned back to Singapore on Monday(27th Sept). Really burned out from the trip.

I really should try to write up my experience from Japan before I forget everything…

Events

• 17th Sept – Ayano Cup SF4 T0urmanent 5v5 @ Big Box Taito
• 18th Sept – Tokyo Games Show, Tougeki, staying at Fuudo’s house
• 19th Sept – Tokyo Games Show, Tougeki qualifiers for SF4, Nomikai(drinking party)
• 20th Sept – Square Enix shop, Tougeki Farewell party
• 21st Sept – Feeling abit sick, Fly off to Nagoya, Gamesky @ Nagoya, helped with NSB stuffs, SSF4 online @ Momochi’s house
• 22nd Sept – Nagoya Amusement Park. SSF4 online @ Momochi’s house
• 23rd Sept – NSB17 SSF4 tournament. Dinner with american players + japanese players.
• 24th Sept – Nagoya Zoo, Nagoya Sky tower, shopping, Mahou Shoujo Cafe, SF4 with Kindevu and Choco @ Gamesky, Bus back to Tokyo
• 25th Sept – Freezing to death,  Gamer’s Lounge, Club
• 26th Sept – Flight back to Singapore

Took around 260 pictures. Lots to type lots to upload… Lots of work to be done…

From Tetra’s Blog

Another short update.

Really really filled up my schedule. I just came back SBO after party. I got to semi finals in the after party tournament with cammy lol. Lost to Fubar duck in the end. We really need a ibuki in Singapore for us to learn match up stuffs.

Anyway, yesterday I entered SBO last min qualifiers and lost to Dath Viper(master rank). He plays kinda like me… Really a damn mirror match. I lost 2-1. Next was Vintagesoul and he lost too. Followed by Carzydogken who lost at the last round. Really close game though.

Dath’s team went till around top 8 after qualifying for SBO. Really good tournament spirit imo.

I will be playing at NSB on thursday. Streaming will probably start around 2pm sg time. Will post again on updates.

Day 5:

Today we walked from Shibuya to Harajuka. Very tiring o.O

After that as usual, we headed down to the arcade. In the last push before SBO, I managed to play against Air again, a Rufus player (probably Death Metabo a Master Ranked Rufus Player), and a Master ranked Bison player.

The Bison player quite amazingly didn’t jump forward during the entire match. Whenever he wanted to get in, he would focus dash in, then hold down back, waiting to Ex Scissor Kick through a Tiger Shot once he had bar. Seriously, all the Bisons in Japan know how to bait Sagat’s Uppercut, for example, they would cross up MK or HK then teleport back, or do a safe jump HP then teleport away. Against them, it was best to block and not try to score an FADC uppercut, since this would normally result in Sagat eating a full punish combo.

Played a game against Super Uraijjo, a Master Ranked Zangief, who was the only Zangief I’ve lost to in Japan.  He was very efficient in using d.LP> Ex Greenhand to whiff punish Sagat’s normals, and I couldn’t just press stand HK whenever I felt like it.  His reaction was really quite fast so if I wanted to shoot a Tiger shot, I would have to do it from close. Otherwise, he would be able to Ex Greenhand the Tiger Shot on reaction.  Also he won the match by punishing a whiffed uppercut with cr.LK (whiffed to buffer motion for Ultra)then Ultra.  Very pain.

By the end of the night, I felt quite prepared for SBO, because I felt that I had a better understanding of how Japanese players played, and so I was definitely a lot more confident than I was when I arrived on Day 1.

Day 6

Today is SBO day! Didn’t get to sleep well last night. I kept on thinking about a lot of things, like setups and trying to recall how all the different players I had fought in Japan played.

The trip to the SBO venue is quite long and expensive. Thankfully I only have to go there today -_-’

Once we reached the venue, we waited in the arena to wait for the staff to call us to gather. After about 20 mins, he brought us to a corner, which was probably our Block Bracket where we had to wait until they called our team name. While waiting, we watched some of the other matches and discussed who among us would go first. Was quite shocked to see MDR’s team, which came in second at the Japanese nationals, get taken out by 50 Yen’s team in the first round (Note: Tetra, Carzydog Ken and Vintagesoul also took part in the last chance qualifiers where they lost of 50 Yen’s team, getting OCVed by Dath’s Viper). Tommy volunteered to go first, and so when we were finally called up, he went first….

And Tommy OCVed the team of DED (RY), Hoimin LVL3 (DIC)and Arison (SG)!

After that we went back to our bracket area.  We saw Shiro’s team, so we knew that they had also won their match and would be our next opponents.  We discussed our strategy against Shiro’s team, and decided that Tommy would go first to suss our their team’s first pick. If Shiro went first and beat Tommy, then Xian could go next. If Ojisan Boy or Mizoteru won first and beat Tommy, then I would go, since we felt that Blanka would be a bad match up for Xian.  The idea here was to protect Xian as long as possible so that he could fight Shiro.

Tommy went first and they sent Mizoteru! I watched how Mizoteru played and I felt that he had very good reactions while playing a very strong waiting game.  After Tommy lost, I decided to try to win by out turtling Mizoteru.

I ended up losing the first round when he got an early life lead (either by chipping with Blanka Balls or sliding… can’t remember).  I tried to keep to my game plan by shooting Tiger shots which he avoided throughout the entire match by coward crouching under.  By the time I decided that I should attack, time was running out and I got killed trying to get in.

In the second round, I managed to get the life lead when he blocked some Tiger Shots.  Mizoteru was forced to jump twice- the first time I uppercutted him, and the second time, I uppercutted into Ultra for the win!

In the third round, I tried to play safe, but somehow, Mizoteru managed to sneak in a LP Roll (whiff)> Throw, followed by a hop through me when I was waking up, leading to an Electricity combo, which gave him a very significant life lead.  After that he went back to his game plan of crouching under Tiger Shots and doing Ex Rainbow Rolls to get out of the corner.  I tried to push him into the corner with Tiger Shots until time started running low, then I tried to start chipping him with Tiger Knees. As time ran out, Mizoteru did his Ultra to run the clock, I went through it with an Ex Uppercut then did my own Ultra on the other side, but of no use… Time had ran out =\

Xian played 3rd but also failed to cracked Mizoteru’s shell… And so our SBO dream was ended, not in the hands of a famous Sagat or a scary Akuma, but against Japan’s number 1 turtle Blanka =(

After that we got to watch the rest of the matches but without a seat, so it was quite tiring. At the end of SBO, we met up with DAICHI who brought us out to dinner. Good stuff.

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Final thoughts:

In general I find that Japanese players are very safe players who can be aggressive when they need to be. What impressed me the most was their use of frame traps to efficiently punish throw tech attempts, their level of execution, and their knowledge of their characters. I think that in order for Singapore to catch up, we need to share more on what our own characters, or what our opponent’s characters are capable of.  At the same time, we also need to be open minded in listening whenever another player shares knowledge with us.

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Well we catch our flight tommorow, and I’m gonna miss Japan. Really hope that I can come back if there’s another opportunity.  It’s been an honour to represent Singapore for SBO and to share my experiences with you all…

SEE YOU ALL IN THE ARCADES!

Day 1

Tommy was very happy to finally arrive as this was his first time here in Japan, and it was especially nice to be here with so many friends.

After a checking in at the hotel, and a quick Bento meal, Tommy and Paul headed straight for the Shijuku Game Taito Station.

General Impressions:

Tommy feels that the Japanese are really strong. Not only is their standard strong, but their reaction speeds and their sense of distance control was really strong. Tommy found himself whiffing a lot of attacks. Tommy especially found a lot of difficulty with the Zangiefs down here, and was surprised that the Japanese Zangief users he fought came in all ages and were all so strong (note: The only Zangiefs in the house yesterday were Mahoshoujo, Cantona and Super Uriajjo a Master Zangief). He did not win a single game off a Japanese Zangief, but he feels that if he had played with them a few more days, he should have a chance at beating them. He feels that the Zangiefs here were especially good at standing outside of your effective distance, then whiff punishing any poke attacks. On top of that, their execution was strong and they didn’t miss many combos.

The Sagats, Balrogs and Akumas he fought were strong, but he found them still beatable. The Balrogs he fought were very defensive (very “tur” leh!) but also worked on pushing you towards the corner, while remaining as safe as they could (note: Zak Bennett was in the house that day also, and he also plays a very strong defensive Balrog, even though he’s not Japanese).

Day 2

Today, Tommy took part in SBO and managed to OCV the first team Team Singapore fought. He was quite happy even though he felt that they weren’t really the strongest players that Japan had to offer. Note: Tommy OCVed the first Team that Team Singapore played against, consisting of DED (RY), Hoimin LVL3 (DIC)and Arison (SG). However the second team they played, was Shiro’s team, featuring Shiro (AB), Ojisan Boy (SG) and Mizoteru (BL). The team fielded Mizoteru (BL) first and this was the first time Tommy was fighting against him.

 Tommy has always thought that he, himself, is a very “turtle” player, but he felt that Mizoteru was much more of a “turtle” than himself. So he had to be very careful and not make a single mistake.  But he felt very happy when fighting him, because he felt that by being a “turtle” player, Mizoteru had in fact turned the match into a battle of reaction speeds. For example, during the entire match, Tommy had shot 2 fireballs, and both fireballs had been punished by slides on reaction.  After that, Tommy didn’t throw any more fireballs.  After that he had to keep on walking forward and blocking, in order to push Mizoteru into the corner.  However, in reaction to Tommy’s push, Mizoteru would jump in and attack, and Tommy failed to react to these jump-ins.  In effect, Tommy thinks that he lost because this was his first time fighting such a strong “turtle” Blanka. Without a gameplan against such a “turtle” Blanka, all his attempts to attack Mizoteru were easily reacted to and he himself was not prepared to react whenever Mizoteru attacked.

If he had more chances to play with Mizoteru, he would definitely try harder to push Mizoteru into the corner and reduce Mizoteru’s opportunities to attack him.

 In all, he felt that he learnt a lot during his trip here and he would definitely like to come back if he could. Additionally, he knows that it wasn’t easy for him to make it here. Fortunately there were many friends who supported him and he is very grateful for that. He wishes that there will be future opportunities for him to bring these friends to Japan to see it all for themselves, because Japan seems like a great tourism spot, with great people, great food, and of course, great Streetfighter.

From Tetra’s Blog

I just reached Tokyo yesterday… I rushed down to Takanobaba immediately after I reached Tokyo.
Shortly after I played against Mago in the 5v5 tournament and lost to him. Along with rest of my Team members. Mago killed all of us

Didnt get much chance to sleep and eat until tonight. Fuudo’s mum cook a really nice dinner!

Right now I am at Fuudo’s place. Alot of SF4 players is coming to his place. TKD, Shungoku Nerose, etc.

Tomorrow I need to wake up at 6am to attempt to join SBO last day qualifiers!

Will update in detail when I am flying to Nagoya.

Hi guys, Leslie here again (with Paul copywriting lah). Sorry for the lack of updates. We were watching SBO match vids last night till a bit too late.

Day 3

Anyway, on Day 3, we went to the legendary Tsukiji fish market in the drizzle, and ran into an Oba-san parade. After that we went to the Ginza district for awhile. Wtf is Muji is like Ikea in Japan?

Soon after that we trooped back to Shinjuku Game Station where it was international night with players from China, Taiwan, Kuwait, Korea (feat. Laugh and Infiltration), America and of course us and the Japanese. Yes lah I got 17 wins in the arcade. No lah, it was only against the less famous players.

Notable players in attendence included Kindevu (who was using Sagat o.O) and Bon chan (SG). Kindevu and Bon chan looked like they were having some sort of grudge match and they left soon after, but not before Kindevu greeted Xian with a xia-lan “Shhhaaaaanggrriiiilaaaa”. Other notable players: TUC (DIC), Yuru (RY), Eita (RY and AK) and Air (RY).

Lost against Eita’s Ryu who was really good at landing the Ultra outside of combos, for example ultra by pure reaction in a fireball game (didn’t seem to be off any particular set up).

Managed to beat Yuru’s Ryu (by a pixel). Really calm Ryu who didn’t jump much, so it really came down a footsie’s fireball match.  I managed to get a good life lead by in the close range fireball war with Sagat’s faster standing shot recovery.

Played with this strong (BB+ ranked) Bison player (don’t know his name) who would neutral jump and teleport on the spot a lot when he wanted to stay safe.  On attack he would focus through two consecutive fireballs and do a HK (which might hit or force me to block… if his second focus was a correctly Yomied one, it would give him enough time to hit me with the HK), which would put him in a good position for Bison to be in (since if he jumped over a fireball he would land a full combo, and he could also Ex Double Knee through fireballs on reaction).

In general i found the standard of the international players to be pretty much on par with us… So it feels to me that its the Japanese playing at a level above the rest of the world, and the rest of the world playing at a similar level.

Day 4

For the tournament, we’ll be collating observations from both myself and Xian.

Again Team Singapore ends up fighting the most ridiculously stacked team in its first match and yes we got OCVed by Mago and Momochi respectively, a bit sian. (In all fairness though, non of the other international teams made it past the first round either… like I was saying, it just looks like the Japanese are playing at a level above the rest of the world).

In the finals Nemo took out 4 characters from the Japanese Gian Peng Team! Taking out Bon-chan, Kindevu, Momochi and Mago, Nemo says “No one scared of match up lah.”

Nemo was very on point with his s.HK> MK Lightning Legs> c.HK combo, which would then set him up for an ambigious cross up df+HK (which works very well on Sagat, Zangief and a few other characters). Once the df+HK connects then he can connect the same combo again… Who says that SF4 is a turtle game?

Other random observations:

(Leslie and Xian) Rchan brought us to the best ramen that no one knows about, Itazan Ramen (Ver 1), named after Itazan because he introduced Rchan to the place. Best ramen I’ve ever eaten (even though I don’t really like ramen).

(Xian) Wtf is I always end up fighting Momochi in tournament, whether its in Singapore, Korea or Japan?

(Leslie and Xian) Today was like a who’s who of international Street Fighter- on top of the international players that we saw on the last few nights, there was also Guile God.HK, Zak Bennett, Poong Ko, Ricky Ortiz, KSK.

(Xian) Wtf is the Rufuses down here always Ex Messiah whenever he tries to Demon Flip grab, resulting in me eating the full Ex Messiah.
(Leslie) Yes lah. I finally manged to play KOK Sagat today. Yes lah (x2) KOK Sagat is very tur and doesn’t poh jump. I managed to narrowly beat him in a Tiger shot battle. Random Observation: One thing about Singapore Sagats is that they don’t know how to do a high tiger shot when a large opponent (Namely: Zangief, Sagat, Rufus, Balrog, Abel) is waking up. They should do it because, large opponents will have to block it on wake up, even if they hold crouch, and after they block it, you will have more frame advantage for the follow up tiger shot, because standing shot recovers faster.

(Leslie) Ojisan Boy lost all his Sagat mirrors today in casuals. It looks like the Sagat mirror match is really a test of “who is more clutch when they have the life lead” and a bit of luck.

Xian is taking part in SBO for KOF tommorow, so let’s wish him all the best. Also, Tommy is arriving tommorow… Team Singapore is finally assembled and its time for the last burst before SBO!

Hi guys i am xian ahahha i am here finally

I will just start at the taito gameinn, saw kindevu immediately after walking down the stairs :p

Saw yoshiwo , TUC , AOI , Shiro and lots lots of foreniger like us. Eg. Zak benett , laugh , infliration , some china or taiwan guys , some guys from US i think. Didnt saw marn or justin wong  think they left earlier.

played my first 2 games against AOI but won. Sounds like a good start but lost immediately next 2 game to random rufus LOL ahhahaha Follow by i played with this no name sagat. Abit shocking to me , cos he plays like leslie and i play until abit piss off LOL turtle Ahahahaha

After which i played with blah blah blanka , bison blah blah.. ok i guess the most interesting part is i played with shiro.

he was …………… ok i will continue when i am back, hahaah we are going for the tournament already LOL

Tetra has posted an interview with the winners of Capcom Nationals.

Here’s an excerpt:

Q. What is the team you dont want to meet in SF4 SBO2010 the most and why?
Momochi: No particular team. Every team is roughly the same.
RF: Daigo’s team. I dont like to play against Fuerte(TKD is in Daigo’s team) in tournaments and also Daigo is a tough opponent. I prefer to avoid his team if possible.
Kindevu: No particular team.

Check it out on his blog.

Hey guys its Kenny here (aka Carzydog Ken aka Siao Gao Ken) reporting from Japan about our experience here thus far in Japan . I’m currently traveling with Leslie (turtle god Sagat), Jasper (Tyco kia poh zangief), and Paul (VintageSoul RF killa). I’ll be updating you guys on whats happening in Japan as well as sharing my thoughts and experience about the trip. Its my hope that through this blog I can share some of the excitements, comedies and insights about the trip because I believe that this experience belongs to everyone in the Singapore community .

Day 1 I stayed @ hotel to work the whole day and didn’t get to play so uh. Not much to say here. Although there were some interesting conversations while waiting for the flight back in Singapore. We were comparing people to anime characters and we concluded that Leslie is Kuchiki Byakuya, Xian is Sasuke because of his ability to learn so many characters so fast (aka sharingan), Sam Aheda is Chouji, and the rest of us at the table are Rock Lees (aka. no talent but plays hard to improve lol).

So starting from Day 2 (Wed) onwards, we went to Akihabara to check out all the Tech/Anime shops and had Gyudon for lunch @ Yoshinoya. I swear every other shop is like an AV shop there. I think Jasper thoroughly enjoyed himself in one of the shops there *cough*. After that we went to Shinjuku for dinner and headed for Taito arcade for some authentic Japanese SF4 experience. And let me tell you – it was f**king awesome.

Players present

Notable players that were there includes:
Mago (SG)
Akua (SG)
Hanamaruki (SG)
Ameriken (SG)
Itabashi Zangief (ZA)
Mahoshojo Zangitan (ZA) Idol zangief
Fuudo (RY)
Togawa (RY)
Air (RY)
Reiketsu (Vega)
Yoshiwo (Guile)

As well as the American team (Justin Wong and co), and the Kuwaitis.

General things I learned

If anything, I learned so much about everything watching and playing against the Japanese. Today’s Top 4 Things that I learned about SF4 in Japan

1.  The japanese players are all grandmaster level mashers. Watching akua mash uppercut made me die a little inside lol. But effectively speaking they really pro at it – they know the correct times to “option-select” mash to punish unsafe combos and jump-ins. If anything its the frequency + accuracy of them mashing it thats pretty impressive. A simple example is Ryu vs akuma. Akuma does low medium kick and fireball – fireball doesn’t link and ryu’s mash ultra would come out and hit the akuma.

2. Japan players are top tier turtles. They have endless capacity and patience for turtling and defensive play. I haven’t had this many timeout losses in ages. Think I’ve had more timeout losses yesterday against Blanka and Akumas than a month of timeout losses in Bugis combined.

3. What impressed me the most was not their level of yomi, but rather their execution and match up knowledge. If anything, their match up knowledge and ability to execute supports their “yomi” as they know exactly what obscure set of moves could punish moves that seems to be “unpunishable”. Further more, they have more knowledge of set ups, as evident from the number of set ups that the players are picking up quickly just from watching and playing against the players. An example is Sagat’s cross-up Heavy kick against rufus in the corner – the trick is forward throw rufus in the corner, immediately time kick by doing a forward heavy kick then jump to do j.hk. The resulting j.hk should actually be a crossup heavy kick. (Paul would tio that twice and eat a full sagat jump in combo LOL).

4. I saw the timing of some of the ambiguous splashes that Maho/Itazan does. I tried to incorporate it into my game play and got some decent results. Depending on character, the trick is to do a jump at the apex of a character who is waking up and pressing splash when the guy is getting up from the ground. People were tioing that many times but I still need to perfect the timing.

Specific matchups

As for specific matchups that I played, I got to play against Mahoshojo, Itabashi, Akua, Hanamaruki, some master Viper player, Togawa, Air, Marn, some Taiwanese Guile and Akuma, B rank Blanka, Reiketsu, Master rank akumas, Grandmaster Rufus (dunno the name – its a one word kanji that I don’t know – anybody know?).

Against Zangiefs - I got destroyed against Mahoshojo (which I’m quite happy about lol. Because it shows how much more I can improve e.g. setups and knowlege and etc). I got totally out-knowledged by him as he perfected me multiple times. The main factor that contributed to my losses against Maho was the lack of match up knowledge. Most notably the specific things that he would be doing that I never do is:
A. After knockdown he neutral jump headbutt O/S with greenhand to catch me if I backdash. Doing so it forces me to block. (Itazan did this)
B. Safe splash – their safe splash timing against zangief is so zhun
C. Anti-airing with ex-greenhand. They can see the antiair distance well. For example I do j.mk from afar and they could ex-greenhand anti air me.
D. Lariat punish – they are very good at lariat punish. They could always ex-greenhand at the last moments of whiffed lariats to punish it.

Other than those factors its either its their knowledge of footsies in this match up thats just better . Don’t think I won a single game against Mahoshojo but I managed to win against Itazan but still lost more games against him. These guys timings are really good and the mirror matches are a great learning experience!

Against Sagats – I was more comfortable fighting the grandmaster sagats than other characters LOL – just because of knowledge of the match ups. The SG Sagats did well in prepping the players (though there are still things that japanese sagats do that SG sagats don’t, for details ask him I’m not too sure lol – but nothing new against Zangief that I havent seen yet). I managed to win against Akua in one game and almost won against Hanamaruki but he pulled a Gangat to kill me one round (knock me down in corner, safe jump Uppercut, fadc backwards uppercut, fadc backwards again and uppercut – I tio the last uppercut by lariating X_X), the other round I messed up my timing and died to reversal uppercut when I probably should have won T_T.

Thats that for the Sagat vs Zangief anyway. OH, and Mahoshojo also buay tahan leslie and has to Poh like 5 times (managed to yomi right one time by backdash then front dash ultra) against leslie but in the end still get kicked to death. That made me feel better about dying to Leslie so many times.

3. Against Ryus – I played against Togawa and Air. Managed to get a win or two but still lost more than won. Their Ryus are good and solid, nothing really bad about them and nothing that really impressed me because I’ve seen most of the stuff they do back in Singapore. But their overall game is just more solid.

4. Against Rufus – well i only got to play against the GM Rufus once and I won by a small margin. He played more aggressive than SY/Paul/Rchan/Ricz but nothing really new in terms of match up knowledge. Tricks that I used against SG rufus works on him as well – and also vice versa – Paul won a game against Mahoshojo and tricks that worked on me also worked on Mahoshojo. So I think our Rufus-Zangief matchup knowledge is not too far from Japan standards. I managed to block all the cross up dive kicks so a big thank you to the SG rufus for training me to see those kicks lol.

5. Against Vega (Claw) – Got to play against Reiketsu. As Leslie mentioned his combos are very zhun and his zoning good. I didn’t really have too much trouble against him most of the game as I was quite okay in the footsie/zoning against him. I was going to win with a comfortable margin but he found this one particular set up that I didnt have a good grasp of then I got uncle vegaed from like 60% health to 0% -________-. SO yes. If the Japanese knows one puzzle you can’t solve, they will keep throwing that puzzle at your face until you know how to solve it inside out.

6. Against Vipers – I managed to play against this master rank Viper and Marn. The master rank Viper was around HZY level, nothing really new that I saw (e.g. SPAM BACKDASH.) . I had mixed results against him with both wins and losses. I knock him down he jialat, he knock me down I jialat. Though I think I started adapting better against him as we played more. Viper-Zangief is always an interesting match to play. As for Marn hes a decent player. I won one (I learned that he likes to mash ultra when hes losing) and lost the other because I wanted to beat him faster but then lost to seismic spam lol (what a joke). According to Paul he thinks hes not really that xialan if you look at his face – that hes actually quite “cuddly”. >_>

I think that covers most of the matches so far and it was a good day . I recommend players who are coming to Singapore to get used to the Viewlix cabinet timing ASAP because its taking me awhile to get used to it as well. Other than that its been a fruitful day and I just learned alot. Almost every game is a hard fought game since everybody in the arcade would be a top player in Singapore haha.

Update you guys more in due time! Gotta head out soon see ya guys

Hey guys its Leslie again.

Today we met up with Jasper and went to Akihabara  to look around. We stopped by the Sega Arcade to play a few games of SF4 there before heading to Taito arcade at Shinjuku. There were quite a number of famous players today including Mago (SG), Fuudo (RY), Shiro (AB), TKD (EL), Mahoshojo (ZA), Itabashi (ZA), Yoshiwo (GU) , Akua (SG), Hanamaruki (SG), Ameriken (SG), Reiketsu (Claw), Air (RY), Togawa (RY), Aoi (SG/AB). Aside from Japanese players the Kuwaiti and American players came as well including Justin Wong and Marn.

It was really crowded today, but I managed to play against TKD, Mahoshojo, Yoshiwo, Aoi, Hanamaruki, Togawa and Justin and Marn.

I played once and lost to TKD fuerte. He’s very very good in my opinion. He had some great setups that would force me into jumping or making a mistake. For example, he would corner me, then do a safe tortilla after a knockdown, this would force me to jump, which would then be a free cr.HP anti-air for him. In general, I found him to be a very active opponent, always find ways to make me jump or whiff attacks, forcing opportunities rather than waiting for them.

Won quite alot of games against Yoshiwa’s Guile. Managed to win the majority of our matches because I was able to out-turtle him mainly because now I knew the distances where he would try to jump in from, so whenever I was in those distances, I would wait for a bit before shooting a Tiger Shot, and the delay was normally enough to make him hesitate to jump (and if he did jump at the moment where I delayed, I could anti air him with Uppercut, stand HK or f+HK, depending on distance). I also managed to find a sweet distance today where I could MK Tigerknee him and if he sonic boomed, my MK Tigerknee would fly over it and hit him.

Togawa was, strangely enough, playing with a BBB ranked card, which was definitely very misleading.  He really impressed me with the speed at which he would push me into the corner with lots of forward walking, cr.MKs and Hadoukens at cr.MK distance.  After a forward throw, he would just walk forward, to push my body closer to the corner then do a cr.MP meaty (which I didn’t dare uppercut) then follow up with a 50/50 mix up between another throw or a very tightly timed cr.MP frame trap.

Learning a lot watch the grandmasters play in real life… definitely better than Youtube o.O… except for all the cigarette smoke (which is very bad for health).

Oh and wtf is Hanamaruki keep on POH-ING jump-in??

Alright, that’s my update for today. I think Carzydog Ken  is also going to blog today, so make sure to read his entry too!