acho vids

This year I'm in a ton of the post-tourney acho vids taken at Nationals, but of particular note are the vids of me using C-Groove! They start at about 10:45 in the vid at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g7G3fd5IV84 . That's of me vs. Tsuji. Everything else is against ARK from Kumamoto (aka Deshikuma). He's a newbie, pretty much... but he really wants to learn. Lately I've been using this team a lot. If I use my real team and win, a lot of times people say it's due to me using A-Groove, and they stop playing. If I win with C-Groove, they have no excuses...

Niigata CvS2 Summer Festival

Never been to Niigata, so I wanted to go to their tournaments last weekend. Bas was going there with Satoru, but they left Friday night, and I had a date - so fuck that!

Anyway, I rode the train to Omiya, took a Shinkansen, transfered to a local to the closest train station, planning to get a taxi to the arcade.

No dice. It was the middle of nowhere, and there wasn't even a station attendant, much less a taxi. I waited 20 minutes to take another train 3 min away, to a place that I hoped had taxis. Luckily there was ONE. I took it over and started playing casuals. Bas had a 20-something win streak by the time I was there. I wanted to play the locals so I didn't join in on him. I used a bunch of low-tier teams (I usually do that when I play in the outer areas of Japan, since they rarely get to see those characters in action) and got some short streaks, but Niigata's level is pretty good. There was an A-Blanka, Sakura, Hibiki player there that got 20 or so wins (I later learned he was from Sendai), but I didn't play him during that time.

After a while I looked over and saw that Bas was at over 40 wins. I was like, "Fuck that!" and walked over to the other side, but someone said that the button was broken, so I walked back. I dunno what happened, but the dude ended up playing anyay. He lost and I joined in.

Goodbye Bas.

I used my real team and my anti-Bas order (Bison, Yama, Blanka). My Blanka is the only character that can deal with his Blanka, and my Bison does better against his Bison than my Yama does. I forget how I won, but after that he stopped playing. I hope it was recorded by the arcade. It was being shown live on USTREAM, but as far as I know, no one capped it.

Anyway, by the time the tourney rolled around I was fully into playing-for-fun mode. I faced Shima in the first round and lost. He used C-Dhalsim, Sagat, Blanka. I haven't faced a Dhalsim since Iyo retired. I forgot that Blanka is the best of my characters to go up against Dhalsim, and his Sim took out two of my characters. Oh well. Double elim, so I still had a chance.

Unfortunately, Bas decided to go N-Groove (Akuma, Sagat, Blanka) for singles and lost to Tao-chan (A-Iori, Chang, Balrog). After I beat someone in losers, I had to play Bas and lost in a semi-close game, so I was out with a 1-2 record. The weird thing about the tournament was that the pairings were shuffled every round. I think they just wanted to use the Bingo Numbering app on the iPad/iPhone.

Bas ended up losing to Tao-chan again.

The results were

1. Tao-chan

2. Pinokio

3. dunno...

The next day was the 3on3. They had decided on teams combining Tokyo and Niigata players. I was teamed with Shima and Pinokio, Bas and Satoru teamed up with Higecchi, who offered to house all of us.

In our first match, we played a Sendai team. I like going first because there's less pressure, so I went first and took out their first two members. Unfortunately, I was using Zangief, Yamazaki, Blanka for that tourney, and the last guy was the dude that got 20 wins with Blanka, Sakura, Hibiki. He put Hibiki first and I put Zangief first. I was hoping for any other character but Hibiki to be first, and when the screen showed that it was Hibiki, I knew I was in trouble. I basically gave up on any attempt to do damage for a while and concentrated on building meter. I wanted to get an empty jump from an ambiguous distance where her fierce would whiff and I could land with an FAB. Didn't work. He hit every single jump in. I think it ended up being a close match, but I lost. Then Shima lost. And Pinokio got Sakura'd and lost.

We ended up not winning a single match, although I did get to beat some people along the way. One person I got to beat was Satoru, who made a post on some BBS a while back saying that he was the best Yamazaki in Japan and that anyone can beat me if they just know the matchups. We're cool now, but I never forgot that! I beat his Ken with Yamazaki but had little life for his Yama. That brought in my Gief against Yama. I hit like 3 FABs and won (which meant that his Yama didn't beat a single character, and mine had!). My Blanka landed a custom to win. That put me up against Bas's A-Groove team, but I had Gief instead of Bison. I still made it exciting, but there's no way I should win that match.

They ended up winning the 3on3 with Satoru sweeping in the finals.

After that, there was an unscheduled random 2on2. I ended up teaming with K (C-Akuma, Blanka, Bison). We were allowed to change characters, and I always wanted to use King in a Japanese tourney, so I used King, Bison, Blanka. My King won rounds, but I unfortunately didn't get to land any midscreen CCs. However, our team didn't lose at all, and won our round robin tournament. That put us up against Bas and one of the workers at the arcade, who uses C-Chun, Blanka, Sagat (I think). K took that guy out, so we were up 1-0. The tourney was in Waseda-style, which meant that I had to face Bas, and then the 2 winners would play off if it were a 1-1 tie.

Remember, I ended Bas's 47 game win streak. I made it close against his N-Groove team, and almost pulled out a win in the 3on3.

Bas was SERIOUS.

I got OCV'd in about 2 minutes. K got past his Bison, but it ended up being a 2-1 win for Bas's team, and we took 2nd.

Fun times. There's another tourney in Kumamoto this weekend, but that's like $700 roundtrip (NOT GONNA DO IT!), and then another tourney in Kobe the week after. I haven't decided on that, but I'll probably end up not going. I really need to play more ball....

Shizuoka Tourney 7/31

Even though it was a Shizuoka tourney, most of my opponents were from Tokyo.

First match, I played Matsuura (C-Ryu, Sagat, Rolento). His Ryu did well, but there's no way he was going to beat my Blanka with his Rolento. I've been playing Kisshi- so much lately, I know it too well. I tried to take video of it, but the camera was in an odd position and I couldn't get the whole screen.

2nd match, I played Kisshi-. Normally, my order is Yama, Bison, Blanka2. His normal order is Hibiki, Kyo, Rolento2 (hence my experience vs. Rolento). On this day, he switched up his ratios to make Hibiki ratio 2, obviously to make a better matchup for Blanka. I had already selected my ratios, but when I saw that he put Hibiki at R2, I decided to go Blanka2, Yama, Bison. If he put R2 Hibiki last (which was a likely bet), R1 Bison could still do well against her. Yama kills her. Blanka is the worst matchup for her, but it's doable. As for Kyo, I'm about even with all my characters against him. The main thing that I wanted was my Blanka against his Rolento, which is why I put him first, even though he was R2.

The gamble paid off. I tore apart his Rolento like nothing. His Kyo did a good job but still lost. Against his Hibiki, I did a drop through CC but for some reason the second hit of the combo didn't connect, so I ended up losing that round - although I DID take it past the all-important 50 second mark. Yamazaki ate an overhead-super combo, but once her meter was gone, there was absolutely nothing to fear. I've played the Hibiki-Yama matchup to death against Bas (AND against Kisshi-). It basically comes down to us both RCing slashes, but if she misses something at a certain range, I can still hit her with a s.roundhouse. Against C-Hibiki, she can't jump in from far away because it's basically a free s.strong anti-air. Mix in some rolls to BnBs and that should be it.

And it was.

In the semis, I had to play Musasabi, who I haven't played in months. Hindsight being 20/20, I know what I should have done. He had R2 Guile, so I should have gone R2 Bison last to matchup better. But I didn't. I went my regular order. I was doing pretty well until it came to Sagat vs. Bison. I went in for a throw, he did a straight up jump and landed a huge combo on me. I couldn't recover from it and lost, although I made a valiant effort.

That put me in the match for 3rd against Abe - a C-Ken, Blanka, Sagat player who I had no worries about. He's obviously not used to Yama, and I'm very used to his characters. Against Ken, I just want to keep him out (that's basically the gameplan for every character). Against Blanka, I look for him to jump in with j.roundhouse so I can do an anti-tripguard CC. Against Sagat, I look for a jump in as well - but I want to go for a jumping roundhouse CC. Anyway, the Ken round took longer than I wanted, I was able to take him out as well as Blanka, but I had little life for Sagat. I still won in the end, but I really want that match with Musasabi back....

Anyway, the results were

1. Shizuoka Saikyo (I got to play him a couple of days later. It would have been a fun final, but his Blanka is better than mine).

2. Musasabi

3. Me

4. Abe

CvS2 Nationals

It's been a while since I've updated.

CvS2 nationals were last month. I didn't really decide on going until really late, so I didn't have a 3on3 team until the day of the singles tourney. The week before, I asked Yane if I could team with him and GAO, but Maeda wanted to team with them too, so we had a play off for it and I lost 0-6.

Anyway, singles was pretty bad for me. I drew Uma in the first round and obviously lost. But, so did everyone else that played Uma in tourney that weekend, so I don't feel bad. It was double elimination though, so in losers I won 3 times, including beating Code (revenge for that Ibaraki VIP tourney!), before losing to Sakamoto.

3on3 I didn't expect much. I was teaming with Kodama (K-Balrog, Blanka, Bison?) and Izumi (S-Beni, Sagat, Cammy?). I honestly don't remember much about the tourney. I basically just wanted to play in casuals that weekend anyway. CvS2 is now like a cult game - only the regulars play... so in Tokyo it gets kinda boring. It's only at big tournaments that I get to play new people anymore, and I got to play a lot there. I even got some wins with my C-Groove team (Blanka, Gief, Yama). Anyway, fun times.

Kansai trip

Working in Nagoya on Monday, and since it's such a boring town I decided to bypass it and go to Osaka for the weekend. Players from Akashi were going to the arcade Monte to play some Osaka people, and since my birth town is sister cities with Akashi, I wanted to go. I anonymously posted that I was an A-groove player from the Kanto region that was going to be there for business... and when I showed up everyone was surprised. There were some good players - a C-Akuma/Kim/Sagat player and a C-Hibiki/Sagat/Chun player stood out. I don't know about the Kim player but the Hibiki player was from Akashi. I wanted to play him with a Zangief team to see how my Gief did against his Hibiki - the answer was better than it should have! Gief vs. Hibiki should be like 10-0 for Hibiki, but I got him down to about 1000 vital with about 15 secs left. VERY good for Gief. I refrained from using my real team for a while, just because I wanted to try out all my sub-teams against everyone. I got a few short streaks (2 or 3 wins) with various characters, then an 8 win streak with my real team. Dari showed up for about 5 mins and we decided to team up for the VIP tournament the next day.

At VIP, I got to play Uma a bit in casuals. He beat me like 6 times and I beat him once. In tournament play, there were 8 teams. They split them into two blocks of four teams, one block to each cabinet. If you lost in first round, you were done. If you lost in the second round, you played the loser of the second round from the other bracket to join the final round-robin.

We drew Desora/Chari in the first round. We were playing by Waseda rules, which meant 2 people faced off, then their partners faced off, and then the winners faced off if there was a split. I played Desora first and won with an activate-and-throw. Dari played Chari next and lost. That meant I had to play Chari. In the last tournament, I OCV'd his C-Honda/Vice/Sagat team with Yamazaki. Today he was using Blanka instead of Vice, but his order was Blanka/Sagat/Honda2. I came within pixels of OCV'ing him again, but I missed a combo at the end. After getting him down to almost nothing again, I won with another activate-and-throw.

Our next opponents were YSK and Uma. Chari lost to YSK, and I played Uma. My Yamazaki took out his Blanka and almost all of his Sakura, but his Bison came back to win it in the end. I choked and I knew it. However, we could still make the final round-robin if we beat the losers of the other block. FK and RCK were playing against Hirata and Saw for the other block. RCK had Hirata down to almost NOTHING and Hirata came back. I hate playing against Sakura-ARE teams so I was kind of worried. I decided to go first against them, but FK was going first for their team. For some reason, FK does really well against me. My Yamazaki had been taking everyone out pretty easily to that point, but his Blanka got him down to low life before eating a custom. In the end, my Blanka owned his Sagat to take the win. RCK faced Dari next. Dari was using Guile instead of Geese today, and his Guile isn't very complete (for example, he doesn't do s.strong anti-air or take advantage of a landed cross up by comboing into a flash kick). Somehow he made it to RCK's last character with full life and no meter, but he slowly worked RCK down and built meter, and landed a combo into super for the win.

In the final round-robin, YSK and Uma played Hirata and Saw first. YKS/Uma won easily. We were set to go against Hirata/Saw next. I hadn't played either of them in casuals much, so I didn't know what to expect so I had Dari go first.







We won, so we faced YSK/Uma again.

They owned us to take the tournament. Dari and I took 2nd, and Hirata/Saw took 3rd. I had to make my train to get to Nagoya on time, so I couldn't take a group picture, but they took a solo of me for some reason. Oh well, I had fun as usual (Osaka is always fun!), and now it's back to work...

Shibuya Ranbat

First tourney in Shibuya for me in the new year. I did the same as my last tourney - 4th. First round, I had no problems with Nobita. 2nd round, I got Matsuura - a good C-Ryu/Iori/Rolento player. I beat him, then lost to Bas. His Hibiki did really well against my Yamazaki, as well as my Bison. I decided to stick with my usual order against him, because I thought my Yamazaki would do better than it did. Unfortunately, I got peaced out. You only were eligible to go to the loser's bracket if you lost in the first two rounds, so that was the end of my tourney. The last tourney I lost to GAO right before I would have made the top 3. Oh well. End results were

1. Tsugunosuke
2. Bas
3. Sakamoto

Tsudanuma Ace

Was working in Chiba yesterday and went to Tsudanuma Ace after work. One K-Sagat/Cammy/Hibiki gave me problems after he switched to an R2 Hibiki to match up against my Blanka. After failing to win with my usual order, I switched to Blanka first and R2 Bison last. I may have to do that in a tournament, as much as I hate to do that in casuals (switching ratios for one person means keeping that team make-up until you lose). After I won with that order he stopped playing, so I switched machines and got a win streak against almost nothing but P-Groove. It's so funny when people taunt when they think they're going to win, and you come back and kill them. I made so many comebacks, it's not even funny...

Actually, it was pretty funny, for me! Among the ways I came back were:

Yama vs. Cammy, I drop her in a CC, so I stand right beside her and counter right before she wakes up. She obviously did a cannon spike, which I countered and I combo it into c.fierce rolls to the corner.

Blanka vs. Rock, I was down to about 2000 vital or so when the round began against a full-life Rock. I get some random electricities to work him down a bit, then do a drop-thru CC. Somehow or other I mess up the CC, but I hop in and RC electricity for a ghetto reset and get the win.

K-Cammy jumps in on my Blanka. I s.jab to get her to JD. I mean to RC fierce ball to counter her post-JD attack, but I get an accidental slide for the win.

Against some P-Groove character, we're sitting there for a bit, both down to pixels, and I walk up to throw, but instead of a throw I get s.fierce for the win.

It's better to be lucky than good!

Ibaraki VIP CvS2 tourney 1/10/10

I got to the arcade really early because I didn't have anything better to do and I wanted to see Yane vs. Bocchan. I always thought Bocchan was the best K-Groove player in Osaka, and he's finally getting his recognition... but Yane may possibly be the best K-Groove player in Japan now. They were supposed to play 20 games, but somewhere along the way it became a 30 game series. After 20, Yane was up 2 games (11-9), but in the end it was a 15-15 tie. I got to play Bocchan a lot, and it took me a while to figure out Yama vs. Cammy... but he's just a lot better than me.

The tourney itself was about 16 people. My first match was against Parker (N-Iori/Blanka/Sagat I think). I OCV'd with Yama pretty easily. From what I can tell, he's a casual player. My next match was against Chari. I played him at the Tsuji Cup last year and won fairly easily. Now, with Yama, I won even more easily - I OCV'd him. This set me up against Tsugu in the finals of our bracket. I won the rock-paper-scissors to get the 2P side. Yama vs. Iori was pretty even I think. The thing I remember most about our match was the Bison-Chun round. I turtled more than I ever turtled in my LIFE. I literally sat there and didn't move (I can't really remember, but I must have been ahead thanks to Yama). He kept trying to bait me into moving, but I wasn't even looking at the screen. I intentionally avoided watching him so I wouldn't get baited. After a LONG while of turtling, I started doing random psycho crushers too. After hitting with a couple I worked in some walk up throws as well. He made a bit of a comeback by nailing my c.forward with a c.strong into super, but I was able to win with my Blanka in the end. Tsugu's been telling me that my Blanka is the one that gives him the most problems. I don't believe that. I am very, VERY ghetto with my Blanka. The only thing I think I do differently from anyone else is wake up upballs. Tsugu thinks it's really good, and that Bas doesn't do it but SHOULD. I honestly don't know...
Anyway, I won my bracket and RCK (A-Sakura/Bison/Blanka) won his bracket. It was double elim, so everyone got a second chance. I don't remember any of the matches except for Tsugu vs. Code (A-Vega/Bison/Blanka). Tsugu was winning by a LOT and had Code down to pixels. For some unexplained reason, he tried to chip him to death with a low tiger cannon. Code got out of it somehow and came back to win. Deshigitsune took his bracket in losers, so it was me vs. Code and Kitsune vs. RCK. RCK beat Kitsune. I don't remember the details. I was kind of nervous about my match with Code. He's improved a lot since the last time I played him (Tsuji Cup). He put Blanka first against me when we played in casuals and gave me a lot of problems. When he put Vega first against me I was able to win. Anyway, I won the rock-paper-scissors for 2P, and in order to get his Vega first, I selected my team out of order. I always pick my characters in the order I play them - so I select Yama, then Bison, then Blanka. I did a bit of a mind game during the selection though. I picked Blanka, then Bison, then Yama, but still kept Blanka a ratio 2. I wanted him to think I was going to put R2 Blanka first to take care of his troublesome Blanka, and end with Yama vs. his Vega (which was in my favor during casuals the day before). He bought it, and put his team in the order I wanted it....





but it didn't really matter. His Vega nearly took apart my entire team. My Blanka had to use meter to take him out and avoid an OCV, and I lost the match. That put me up against Kitsune.
He put his Chun Li first. I kind of like that matchup for Yama, but I rarely face any K-Chuns. His JD skills were really good, but he jumped in on me when I had full meter and he was raged or one JD away from being raged. I had one thought on my mind - anti-tripguard CC and whether it connected or not, I was going to waste away his meter. The only problem is, I got a close s.fierce instead of an activation, he JD'd that and supered me.
Bison basically built meter for my Blanka, who came in and did his job. I got behind by a lot though, and had to go for broke on a non-guaranteed CC. He blocked it, but I went into crazy mode and did some jungle hops to confuse him. I connected with an electricity toward the end of my meter, and canceled that into a super. That put me in good shape. I was still behind, but it wasn't by an insurmountable difference. The problem was, he was raged. I went into hit and run mode, but he read a backhop and did a low tiger cannon on me. I died and took 4th place.

Capcom Olympics 1/9/10

Last weekend was the Capcom Olympics at a-cho in Kyoto, followed by another CvS tourney at Ibaraki VIP in Osaka. I decided to head down the night before to scope out the place, but no one else was there. I crashed in a manga cafe and headed over in the morning. Tsugunosuke was there playing RF, and Tsuji and some other Gifu player was there (K-Rock, Nako, Geese?). I got some wins and also lost a bit, but I felt good. When the brackets were set, I felt even better. I got a bye for the first round, and in the second round I had to face Dari. I barely beat him in the team tourney at the Tsuji-cup last year, but now I had Yamazaki on my team. We played on the main cabinet, so there's a slight chance that the match was recorded. My Yamazaki ROMPED. I took out Geese and Rugal with Yamazaki, and wanted the OCV so bad that I used my meter against Sagat going for the jumping roundhouses CC. He blocked it and I eventually lost the round. My Bison came in, and I basically just wanted to build meter with him. I have a lot of confidence in my Blanka recently, so I didn't care too much about losing Bison. It turns out, that's exactly what happened, only sooner than I'd have liked. The last round was pretty close I think. If I remember correctly, I won with an airguard-break CC.
Next up was RF. He's using Team Ricky now, but he also didn't know what to do against Yama. I think I got through one and a half characters with Yama, and eventually won. I don't remember too much about the details, only that he missed a CC with Sak against my Blanka, and I got the hell out of there. Beating him put me in the top 8.
The top 8 bracket was determined by drawing cards. I accidentally took two and put one back. The card I kept was #1, which meant I had to put my name on the bracket first, but I could put it anywhere. What that meant was, I could decide WHEN I was going to play, but not my opponent. I decided to get it over with quickly (I hate waiting) and put myself in the first slot. #2 to decide was YSK, the only other A-Groove player in the top 8, and he uses Sakura-ARE. He demolished me in casuals, so he decided to put himself against me. When it came time to play, I won the rock-paper-scissors for the 2P side. My Yama did decent but not great. But I built meter for Bison. I think I connected an anti-air CC against his Sakura to take her out, leaving me with no meter against his Blanka (I think). Anyway, it was a pretty close match. He won with a walk-up-activate on me, so my tournament ended in a 4-way tie for 5th. Yane played Chari next and won. Tsugu played Daidouraku and lost (the official story is that he couldn't get his mind off of the cute maid at the cafe in the arcade...while she WAS hot, the real story is he finally got worked by somebody else's Chun). Deshigitsune beat Sacchansan in the other first round match. Yane then got worked by YSK, Daichan beat Kitsune, Yane beat Kitsune, and YSK beat Daichan.

1. YSK (A-Sak/Blanka/Bison)
2. Daidouraku (N-Akuma/Rolento/Chun)
3. Yane (K-Geese/Blanka/Sagat)
4. Deshigitsune (K-Chun/Hibiki/Sagat)
5. Me (A-Yama/Blanka/Bison), Tsugunosuke (N-Iori/Chun/Sagat), Chari (C-Honda/Vice/Sagat), Sacchansan (K-Cammy/Blanka/Sagat)

After the tourney I played Yama-Gief-Blanka in casuals and got 17 wins. Go figure. All in all, it was a good day.

Nagano

After some moderate success at a few of the Shibuya ranbats, I decided to go traveling to test him out. On Thursdays I try to play at Daytona in Warabi. The competition level is low, but it lets me try things out and get good practice. Tsudanuma Ace is a lot more skilled, and I can get good experience against P-Groove and Morrigans. Ekoda is close to home, but it's always the same 2 or 3 people there. For New Year's Eve, I went with Bas up to Nagano to play people there. Everyone says it was easier to beat me when I used Gief. I got a few OCV's with Yama, as well as some good experience against Yama (albeit K). Tao-chan, the best Gief in Japan, also recently dropped Gief for Kim. He can use basically anybody though. His Bison is a lot better than mine - I realized I need to use c.fierce and c.strong as pokes more. It was a lot of fun playing everyone there. I'll probably head over there again next winter (I love areas with snow!).

Getting up to date...

okay, I changed my team a while back. I now use A-Yamazaki/Bison/Blanka. I've always thought A was Yamazaki's best groove, and I knew he was a better character than Zangief, but I wanted to stick by my character. But it just seemed time for a change. I think I've done all I can do with A-Zangief - more than anyone would have expected. I still use him in casuals, but Yamazaki is my new "bidness" character.