dont have it for ps3:wasted: maybe i can get it from Ricky
No offense taken; everyone is on the grind to get better just like me, so it’s no worries. I’ll see you online sometime 
Branh - Iyo got knocked down and put into the corner; when someone knocks Sim down and gets on top of him it’s really hard for Sim to deal with that kind of pressure. It’s even worse for the Sim player if he ends up in the corner. Iyo is a Grandmaster, but even he has to guess like everyone else…
Okay long post, so I apologize in advance:
I know most of you here don’t know me, or barely know me and my name doesn’t mean much. (Deservedly so). I’ve not been around because I’ve been working hard on my own personal stuff. (The biggest problem being that I am paying for myself and my younger brother to go to college, even with scholarships, it’s very tight). The work is finally paying off and soon if all goes well I should be moving into my first house. I’ll have a yard and everything! Keeping my fingers crossed.
Anyway, I’ve fallen into an opportunity for the GA fighting game community. I may never be the best player and I certainly don’t have the notches in my belt in experience many of you have, but I have kept up with the scene and have done the best I could to highlight the area when I can through the column I write.
Introductions (reintroductions?) aside I was contacted yesterday by an old friend of mine, who wants to get into the business of video game tournaments. As I have a love for fighting games it’s a no brainer what kind of things I want to throw.
The friend is the manager of Red Carpet Lanes. The place is an interesting mix of things, a bowling alley, pool hall, arcade, vip lounge, bistro type of thing. Think “Jillians” and you have the right idea. You can check out information here: Red Carpet Lanes
Here are the pros and cons of this whole venture as I see it:
PROS:
[LIST]
[]A massive venue that can house 1800 people.
[]These tournaments would be run by the operators of the venue, so no cost to rent space.
[]Guaranteed Pots (still negotiating but he is the one who offered it)
[]They are serious about it, they are going to spend their own money to get consoles for setups
[*]Entry fee gets you food and drinks, discounts on bowling, etc
[/LIST]
CONS:
[LIST]
[]No experience in this arena.
[]HDTVs (I know players will not accept televisions that lag, so I will make sure he knows this is the case)
[/LIST]
What he wants is weekly tournaments, and is even interested in a major at some point. (He already has contacts with local hotels). However, I want to stress this venture in NO WAY intends to replace or drive out existing tournaments. Final Round, Impact Clash, Waba Weeklies, etc, are all things I appreciate for this community. I don’t want to drive out anything, I want GA to roll deep!
Also another perk is I’ve talked with him about filming and posting videos. Cool-Breeze talked about getting our scene attention and respect, and if we could get more videos out there it would help immensely. I mean just think we know UK 3S players nearly solely from their videos.
So I’m coming to you asking what you guys think. I do believe the tournaments will happen with or without my input, because in addition to wanting to add gaming flavor to the venue he’s trying to drive some traffic there during the day since they already got the nights going well, but as he’s come to me, I want to do it right.
The events would be weekly, actually multiple times a week. Obviously over the summer he’s aiming at getting some of the younger crowd to come out since they are out of school, but there would be different game different days. That’s another thing I’d like input on, if you guys think this is worth embracing what games would you want? What times? These would happen during the week unfortunately (but it would be nice since it would not conflict with Waba) and I could push to get the games we really are interested in run on Friday to make it a bit easier on the community to come out.
Street Fighter IV is a no brainer, but what in addition to that? Soul Calibur 4?
I also need to get with him on the issue of people bringing their own equipment. Controllers and the like are fine, but on the business side he is wary of liability of stuff the tournament uses that is borrowed from players. (Hence him wanting to buy six PS3s). I’m pretty sure he’ll listen to me, and I’m going to tell him that a lot of tournaments work with players bringing in things (especially if they want to play games not officially having a tournament) but there may need to be some sort of liability waiver if that happens.
As not to hit you with too much information lastly I was thinking, if people were interested, in running Ranking Battles. I think it would both give incentive for people to keep showing up, as well as create videos that could get the ATL some of it’s own hype.
So I’m just wondering your input, thoughts, comments, etc.
There would be other games on other nights, Madden, and stuff still to be determined. These would start in the next month or so.
Branh, the first round against Iyo JWong got raped for one reason:
He was testing him out.
I’ve talked to Wong a few times. He’s told me this is how he plays new people. The first round he just tries stuff to see how they think. Then he adapts. He adapts better than anyone besides Daigo.
Joel, I just watched some videos from the SBO TVC qualifiers. It looks like Ken the Eagle is on Karas level now!
Kinda late but good shit to everyone who came out to waba, it was more fun than I expected to be honest. Thanks to Iceman for rolling with me to Alabama.
I definitely gotta come to your spot metalmike it was a lot of fun hanging with you.
Omnislash it was fun doing the Balrog vs Balrog finals man. Good times
Happy 4/20 to everyone! Now this is a holiday where everyone can get along regardless of their differences and just enjoy the fuck out of what nature can offer us.
:lol:
Amen.
:tup:
Yeah, that match was hella fun. Im going to try and go to EP tomorrow or the wednesday, depending on which day I have off.
Let me know so I can try to get down there too.
I am down to roll to east point tuesday.
I will be hosting a gathering Friday evening beginning at 5pm. All parties interested post up.
Yo man. Justin adapts to fools. No disrespect sir but your post sounds like more of a fanboy/nuthugger of iyo than an honest observer of the match. That guy is mad good but so is justin. Sim doesn’t have a dp and once rufus get’s on top of you it’s a rap! I don’t think justin was saving meter for ex messiah kicks. I think most top players that don’t use ryu or sim never use their regular supers because they use ex moves so much.:karate: Rufus builds meter fast and justin is prolly the best rufus in the world. Iyo is the best sim in the world. It seems like that’s a mismatch on the highest levels for sim.
In the same breath it seems that ryu is a natural counter character to rufus. His game revolves around jumping and dive kicks. That why the korean champion did well against justin. There was no chance to change characters. You had to stick with that character throught the world joint. I personally think all of those guys are fucking great! I find it really funny how people called the korean player a scrub when he would ace everyone that just started to play sf4 on consoles for FREE!:karate: I think he is wreakless with his rushdown, but once he get’s you in the corner it’s a rap!:looney::karate:
If I’m an Iyo nuthugger, then I’ll just be one. Shit at this point who isn’t? After the events that unfolded, you’re either a Daigo nut hugger, a Poongko nut hugger, a Wong nut hugger, or an Iyo one. I guess there aren’t enough Iyo nut huggers, so I’ll be the first on his team.
Yes Poongko would rape most people on SRK, but the again SRK is full of nobodies anyway so that isn’t saying much. Poongko is just really entertaining, but I just believe that style has it’s limitations at a certain level. I mean Poongko was a KOF player for years, so maybe he’s just bring over a lot of his KOF sensibilities to Street Fighter IV. But all overall, he has no ground game. I mean his combos are nice and everything, but everybody else had better footsies and superior spacing to him. But I hear only great things about his competitive attitude, so maybe he will become really solid. I also hear he will be at Evo. Which would be nice. I just think at this point he really throws people off, and Wong himself didn’t really have a lot of positive things to say about Poongko’s game. But hey Poongko is really getting people talking, and he’s garnered a lot of fans.
Seems like Jwong is the villain in all of this. Not sure why. I believe he adapt and he’s good. But I doubt at this point he’s at the level of the Japanese Grandmasters. Daigo isn’t the only person at that level in Japan.
But man you make great points, but they all lead back to nuthugging! I respect the fuck out of the japanese players. The thing is they all live basically in the country as big as cali. If all of us lived in cali we would be the best fighting game players in the world and it wouldn’t be close imo. You would either get better and more skilled or you would quit playing because it would be to hard to play against all of these beast!:karate: Japan get’s the games 1st and they all live in a country that’s the size of cali. We are all at a disadvantage compared to japan imo. Everyone in the world is at a disadvantage on the learning curve against japan. I just have to much pride for my counrty and it’s players to say we are that far back. (meaning our top players vs theirs) They are ahead of us no doubt, but we are gaining on them.
:karate:
Hey everyone, real talk:
Would anyone be up for playing against me in sf4 more often? I really need to level up. I went 2 and out again, and I really think I can do better. If anyone has a jap style 360 stick they are willing to sell I would love to take it off your hands. I KNOW I am better than this, I don’t know why I just can’t show it at tourneys.
Are you getting nervous during the tournament?
Just asking sir.
I really started thinking about it lately. Yeah I’m sure that’s part of it. Once I started losing to a Ken pad player (no disrespect, he was good, I think he beat metalmike too) I think I just started tensing up, and it went downhill from there. Blaaah. 
the tourney jitters:lol: we’ve all been there.
Being nervous and tense gets better with time. Practice makes your execution and understanding and overall dexterity better. Playing with a lot of people using a lot of different characters gives you basic knowledge to build off of and learn to overcome. All in all, you got the right idea, it’s about exposure and playing as many people as possible.
I think the cool thing about waba is that after the tourney, Omnislash, me, Metalmike, iceman, and lil kong and his crew all went out afterward to eat and we talked shop about the scene and things and we touched on the topics of the game as well. Conversations about the games, matchups, matches that we have just had or match ups that we have seen give a lot of understanding and insight into the game and that’s really a big part of this.
Understanding the mechanics of moves goes a long way with understanding how your normals and specials can be used to put yourself in an good situation and how to keep yourself there, to understanding how to break away from an bad situation on the fly. The more you understand about the system the faster you can evaluate things like being pressured by moves you never seen before and the faster you can adapt to break them and that’s really key.
Really the best answer for what your looking for is a strong fighting game community in general, and I know there are people really hungry out there to improve and get better and travel and learn and most importantly win.
I don’t know if you’ve noticed this or not. But Mike who plays Tekken always seems to wear headphones, that may help. Personally the crowd doesn’t bother me. At least people don’t hate you yet. Anytime I show up at a tourney about half of east point is rooting against me, and anyone on my side generally complies with rooting against me as well. But hey, it makes me want to play harder just so I can shut everyone the fuck up. I was able to do it at arcades a few times in the last 17 years, just need to do it in a tourney. And it will happen.