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...

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.