Tonight we shall have a gathering. Everyone and anyone is invited. The more the merrier. All are welcomed. I’ll be going around to collect the E fee so please have it ready when I ask. Anyone new who wishes to join us please text me at 310 344 9367.
Hope to see y’all tonight.
If you like Street Fighter Alpha 3 and you want to create a scene for this awesome game please join this newly created group so we can spread the word. We need people to join and unite all Street Fighter Alpha 3 players. I myself have an arcade cabinet for this game in my garage. Please Join!!!
GGs guys. I really enjoyed myself (no salt, but I’m starting to hate going to Ibuki to fight my battles). I’ve played Alpha 3 a couple of times now off and on, and I’m genuinely curious: why hasn’t Capcom gone back to things like air blocking and guard break for SF games? The game just feels right. I can actually apply 3s style conditioning and tic throws without the game speed getting in the way. Block strings and links all make sense, and the neutral game is really dynamic. I know V-ISM turns Alpha 3 into Genei Jin - The Game, but compared to every other SF game I’ve ever played, Alpha 3 just has a good sense of flow and playability.
Alpha 3 is a really, really, solid, and fun game. Hell, I’m typically a fireball and zoning type player, and I find Alpha 3 fun. The only thing bad about it are the neutral jump infinities, but those are extremely hard to execute, and only reserved for high-level stuff. For casual-level play, it’s a pretty awesome game.
How many of you are going to the 25th anniversary tournament?
I have to attend a stupid seminar for my class this Saturday, I won’t be able to make it 
EDIT: I want to go to this shit. Not too many opportunities to go to a tournament this big. I have to go. I already “paid” for this. You get reimbursed the tournament fee if you attend.
Yo, wassup guys!
I hollered at Don, and he was gracious to accept myself and my fellow NorCal players to your arcade!
In preparation for the Street Fighter 25th Anniversary tournaments,
the NorCal Super Turbo scene is coming to visit Don’s Arcade this Friday!!!
We can’t wait to come and see old and new faces alike.
Tell your friends, and GET HYPE!!!
I myself have to go to a wedding on Saturday:(
But I have some exciting news for this coming Friday. A group of 7 ST players from Nor Cal have contacted me and they want to come here this Friday. They are arriving on Friday and they are going to stay near LAX for the 25th tournament. So they want to get their ST practice on for the tourney. My place is convienient for them since I live near LAX:) So Cal ST come over and let’s do this this Friday and make it a party:)
I’ll be going to the 25th anniversary tournament. Only signing up for 3s though.
I can’t really afford to go tomorrow behind work. If you want Grant, we can grind it out at Don’s tonight. I’m sure there’s a number of things we can iron out in your play before tomorrow.
Tonight we shall have a gathering. Everyone and anyone is invited. The more the merrier. All are welcomed. I’ll be going around to collect the E fee so please have it ready when I ask. Anyone new who wishes to join us please text me at 310 344 9367.
Hope to see y’all tonight.
ST party tonight:)
I’ll be at FFA tonight.
Might come visit afterwards though.
After the SF 25th Anniversary, I have a lot more respect for Super Turbo. We played HD Remix, but on the classic settings. I did ok, my personal best as far as results go in the tournament. Made it up to quarter finals of my pool, eliminated by Thrust who is the qualified winner in my pool (Qualified for Top 16 I am assuming). DGV also qualified, but I didn’t get to play him.
One of the greatest thing about the people I played with was that they all just had so much love and respect for the game. They were just happy to play the game, and all the people I beat shook my hand and congratulated me. When I lost to Thrust, I did the same thing and we exchanged some pleasant commentary. Again, I am always thinking how crazy it is that I play with a bunch of older players. I was hanging out with JC Exclusive and the “Southtown Syndicate” people. (Forti, Muffin Man, WIlly) All good people.
It is a stark contrast to my time playing SF4 where people were quiet and kept to themselves. Yea we did shake hands after matches, but it just didn’t quite feel the same. I did the worst in SF4. Only did slightly better in Third Strike, but I got eliminated by Gootecks. It is funny seeing Gootecks getting mad when I won a round, but still he did crazy shit with Urien.
Overall, I had a great time. This is probably my first “big” tournament and it hopefully won’t be the last. I still can’t believe I did better in ST than Third Strike though. 
Oh, but I do have a question. Balrog vs. Vega matchup, how do I win? Lol, I picked Balrog. Both players I lost to (Viscant, Thrust) used Vega. It was really tough, only time I won rounds is when I was able to push them in a corner and do tick throws all day.
LMAO! Oh Gootecks. Now I regret not going to see him rage. Good shit, Suga.
Going to this tournament makes me wanna go to other majors… But then I remembered that other majors don’t have 3s.
Thnx again sugafree for switching shirts with me.
What’s this? A blossoming love for ST?! If you got questions about ST or need help in a matchup, holla at me, I’d be more than happy to level you up.
I love the ST community. I haven’t met a bad dude in the scene yet, not counting the trolls and assholes that populate the GGPO server. Generally the ST guys are older and a bit more mature, not to mention we’re aware of the fact of how small our hardcore community is, so we’re generally pretty nice to each other and willing to help out anybody who has questions about the game. We all unite under our love for the game, and don’t really bother with all the drama. Also, most of us grew up playing the game alongside other people either offline at home or at the arcade, so we actually have some social skills, lol.
Word on the grapevine is that the ST cab at Super Arcade should be repaired soon, so we’ll start having weeklies or biweeklies for casual and/or tournament sessions, so we can level up together as a coast. We can’t let the East Coast guys thinking they’re the best at the game, lol. I got a couple of newbies who are also interested in attending local sessions and getting to know the other ST guys, so I think we’re in a good position to be able to train you guys up so you can fight against the best of us.
Balrog v. Vega, at the highest level, is either a 5-5 matchup or 6-4 Vega favored, depending on who you. It’s a difficult matchup to learn, since you need a very commanding knowledge of both Balrog’s and Vega’s normals and special moves, and really understanding the flow of momentum in the match. On the ground, Vega has slightly better pokes due to his ridiculous range, but Balrog can usually counter with either a st.fierce (long range but slow), cr.forward (great for counterhitting slides and low pokes), cr.strong (the entire arm is invincible, and usually wins when you’re in range), and both st.jab and cr.jab, which are generally fast and high priority moves for the entire cast. If Vega jumps at you, you should either headbutt if you have the charge, or do cr.fierce, which trades in your favor, and lets you dash upper to get close, or simply walk up, and lay on the close pressure.
Safe jumps and tick throws can often murder Vega very quickly, since Boxer’s throw range is a few pixels wider than Vega’s. Vega has an extremely good reversal with great horizontal range, but it’s easy to safe jump, as long as you realize that he wakes up a frame or two faster than the entire cast. A great attack string to use when you’re next to him is cr.jab ~ cr.jab ~ cr.strong x dash upper (with kick) and then either a jab headbutt or a throw. Balrog’s jab headbutt is actually safe on block, and a GREAT way to beat out guys who tend to hit buttons or try to counter throw whenever Balrog is close.
The real danger is Vega’s wall dive, which can easily destroy a Balrog who can’t deal with it. Your options will depend mostly on how Vega likes to attack you. Some Vegas like to fake the wall dive and land far away, hoping to punish your headbutt, some guys wall dive directly on top of your head, some like to attack behind you, some in front. Balrog can use a headbutt to either hit him or land far away, dash upper to catch Vega if he fakes, as well as to avoid an attack, occasional cr.fierce if he has bad timing, or jump back fierce or jab.
Many Balrogs like to do the dash upper early, and then st.jab, which will beat his claw attack at specific ranges, and allow you to close the gap and threaten him with meaty combos and tick throws. Highly talented Balrogs will do dash upper into super, which requires you to shift your charge sides quickly, and punish Vega. This works because when Vega lands after a wall dive, he does a little hop during his recovery animation, and he can’t block for that 1 or 2 frames when he lands.
It was the wall dives where I had the biggest problems. It was hard being able to tell if Vega will cross me up or just go for the grab. When I played against Viscant, one round I was very dominant because I pushed him into the corner and did tick throw loops. My issue is handling the mid-screen game, it was always a 50/50 when Vega was jumping around the stage. I felt that if I knew the match up, I probably could have won.
I also did not know that cr.strong was invincible, would have helped when I was being poked by Vega lol. Standing Fierce didn’t feel as effective as I thought it would be, I ended up trading pretty much all the time.
Realize that in ST, you cannot be grabbed in the first few frames that you’re getting up off the ground. The only time he can grab you is if you’re already on your feet or jumping in the air. If he goes to the wall when you’re still on your toes, you can use several of the above mentioned moves to avoid or counter the wall dive. The wall dive tactic is most effective when he goes to the wall BEHIND you to make you lose charge and have better control of where he attacks. If your reactions are good enough and if you’re close enough, you can go air-to-air to beat him, dash up with dash upper to close the gap, and lay down the pressure.
The ground game is extremely dependent on how good your reactions are. Vega is extremely fast on the ground and jumping, and you need to rely on your ability to play footsies and defend against jump attacks to beat him. st.fierce has good range and will often trade, but trades are always in Balrog’s favor due to his higher damage output and higher health. Life lead is extremely important in ST. The clock goes by pretty fast in ST, and a strong life lead will put more pressure on the losing player to play a bit more risky to mount a comeback, as well as allowing you to use the life lead as a resource to take smart risks in order to finish off your opponent for the win.
cr.strong is Balrog’s most popular poke to cancel into a special, since it’s fast, nearly unbeatable, and lets you either do a low rush punch, dash upper, or dash straight, to lay down pressure, do chip damage, build meter, and find ways to land damage as well.
Check out this recent match (Evo 2012) of the best Balrog in the country facing off against Tokido’s Claw. His Claw is known to be EXTREMELY cheap, and plays to the lowest denominator. I apologize beforehand for my annoying commentary, lol:
[media=youtube]QbHQsKCX39k[/media]
When you land a tick throw anywhere, you can walk behind Claw, do a cr.forward, and go for another tick throw. Claw has a VERY tough time getting out of this trap. He has to reversal throw the cr.forward. This is risky because he has to stand up to do it, meaning he might get hit by the cr.forward, from which good Boxers can hit confirm, and link into cr.strong xx low rush punch. If Claw blocks cr.forward, he’ll most likely get grabbed again due to Boxer’s bigger throw range. He can do a kick flip to back out, but Balrog can just walk up and grab him again. He cannot tech this throw. He has to rely on Boxer screwing up his execution in order to get out.
Hah, those tick throws in the beginning is what I did to a Blanka player. Super cheap lol, but effective.
Thanks for the Vega tips though, I need to fight a good Vega next time I go to Don’s lol.
Despite Vega being the best character in the game imo, we pretty much have no dedicated Vegas in the west coast. Very bizarre. But I’m sure a lot of people know how to play Vega like a scumbag. High-level Vegas ALL play lame. No reason to do random wall dives when you have a character with the best ground game in the game, he walks and jump like he’s on speed Turbo 10, and ridiculous priority.
Blanka is a character with strong footsies, annoying cross-up, and a GIANT bag of tricks and shenanigans that work. Fun character, but as long as you can keep the beast under control and not let him jump around, he’s dead meat.
This a true story? I’ve never seen anyone play Q at Regency before. All my Q experience was when I played at Berkeley, as Paul Kim and UltraDavid played Q. There once was a guy at regency who played turtle ken who punched me in the head once. I’ve been looking for him since. I have never seen him at regency ever again. I go to regency on thursdays to play before going to a friend’s house. But then, I’m 5’6’ 170, so I’m not a skinny guy. I’m not big, but I’m definitely not skinny.
If it was you that threw the punch, my knees didn’t buckle and neither was I dazed, because I called you a pussy after the punch. If it was you, I’m going to put a bullet between your eyes or a knife in your throat. If it wasn’t you, count your lucky blessings.