It’s happened to all of us at one point. Feeling confident in our practiced ability. Strategizing with out acquired knowledge. Nervously twitching fingers tap the buttons on controllers. Then, the match starts. 10 seconds later, you don’t know wtf happened, how to count to 6, and the date of your own birthday let alone how old you are.
I picked up 3S like, last year and have been playing continuously. I am commited to the game but I had never really played anyone really good. I watched videos and thoughts matches would go slower, people respecting space and being able to parry properly.
My first match in a tourney vs: One of the top 3rd Strike players in NC (Let it be known that this was like, 1yr of exp vs. a lifetime)
Makoto vs. Dudley:
Dudley pushes me into corner… Rape:wasted:…
The match taught me to fear wake-ups and learn tendencies and understand my opponent more than any fighting game I’ve ever played. I proceeded to be destroyed by various other 3rd Strike vets, many have gone to EVO. Most, if not all attend regional and national tournies.
All throughout the beatings, I learned and fuck-lot. My game stepped up like 5000000x since then and it showed immediate results. This experience taught me that if you really want to learn the game (obviously) play the best players and learn from them.
They were probably the most friendly ass-whoopings I ever received and I enjoyed every second of it. I proceeded to apply this knowledge onto money-matches and friendlies with the uneducated 3rd Strike masses.
Here’s for 10 more years of 3rd Strike… Ya dig?
I can think of a few different eye opening experiences, but I think the most shocking set I ever played was against Kokujin. I don’t even know why no one else was around to play him, but I remember getting a good 10-15 games against him one night at Game Versus, and HOLY SHIT…
I’ve played Boss, KO, Kuroda, MOV, Rikimaru, Match, Nuki, Ochibi, RX, and more, but NOBODY has raped me as bad as Kokujin did. Any knockdown I got felt like a blessing from the 3s gods. I’m pretty sure every c.mk I did (besides punishes) he beat clean with fierce. For the entire set! I don’t think I ever got a round against him.
I’ve played some of Fukuoka’s finest: Goemon, Suzu, Tetsugoshi, and Deshiken. Out of them, my bouts with Deshiken were the most memorable and what made me really respect him as a player. 20 games in a row against him, and I lost all of them. Some of them were close, and I almost won a game. Then he switched it to high gear and fuck…Deshiken when he’s down on life is the scariest thing in the world. I mean all four of them beat the shit out of me and made me realize how ass I am at this game, but Deshiken was just in a league of his own. I’d say that was my first experience playing a true world-class 3S player. Corny title, but he deserves it.
The thing that gets me though is that despite how incredible these guys are(better than anyone I’ve faced in the US), they’re still considered weaker than Tokyo. It’s kinda scary…
You lost to a ten year old?
I played alpha 2/3 a lot. those were my main games but I never played other people from the community. I spent most of my time playing arcade and playing random friends, who weren’t fighting gamers by nature. So, of course I thought I was spic and span when I stepped to the 3S cab for the first time at the local arcade. I played against players who were, at the time, MAYBE intermediate.I got rocked. They were amazing to me because they could short,short x super with what seemed like witchcraft. Goooood times 
and it was the craziest feeling ever. It wasn’t saltyness, but more like trying to figure out what just happened. I think it’s the first time I was mindfucked in 3S or any fighter.It was interesting because as soon as that happened, I knew that there was an entirely foreign facet to the game, i.e., the psychology that I had yet to explore. it’s like someone just took a blanket from over my head and said “Tada! Welcome to the real world of fighting games. You’ve been served.”
After that all my time didn’t just go into trying to mash harder and beast with offense. Most of it was spent delving into the psychology and theory fighting with the new players I’d meet along the way. I deconstructed the game and figured the juggle system, how resets work, crossups, fake cross ups, ground crossups, links, footsies, sandbagging,meter management, counter picking-most of this was learned in training mode and I used SRK to confirm. It’s been like solving a Rubik cube in a way, but way more fun.
Also, I always tell this story but it made a big impression on me. I played Valle once in Texas back when I was barely intermediate and spent about a c-note on him. I beat him once, but that’s where I learned how to properly play Ryu lol. People call me random but it’s not, and I picked up those kind of psychological tricks from that one night. It was definitely priceless XP.
mind boggling scary. thats the deshiken tale.
Issei at CTF, Nuki and Daigo at evo multiple times but compared to a japan experience thats peanuts lol. Issei was the only person that made my jaw drop. His yun was just a tiny nightmare that kept you coming back for more. his english was bad at first but he would always give tips and pointers and is such a cool guy
Wish i had the experiences you and pherai had though.
I really enjoyed that first post. It’s very true. 
Sunroute, playing against MOV.
No Japanese experience but here goes.
An Australian player named Hong, originally from Hong Kong, who learned Dudley from Kokujin really opened my eyes. Played him a few times and questioned everything I knew about the game. He just sat at that machine for ages and ages raping people, including some very strong Aus players. That first session took hours and he lost only a handful of times. I beat his Makoto like a week later but he must have cut me a break for some reason. He used Tanden-Renki. The win still felt pretty good.
Sad part of it all was that I missed a chance to learn from Paul T, a very strong gouki player on Hong’s level.
Paul had gone back to Hong Kong just before I started living there. Wouldn’t ya know that during the five weeks I visited Korea he came back for a visit and some 3s sessions. :sad:
This post reminds me that I should mention I also got a chance to play Alex Valle when he stopped by Virginia for a tourn in 06. I only got to play two games against him in casuals; he used Twelve first and then Ryu next. I did get to play against well-known Mid-A players like Eric Kim and Shinshay back when I was starting to get into the local scene not too long before, but Valle was the first super big name. I was just starting to try and scratch my way to the local mid-tier level then, so needless to say I got rocked hard. His fundamentals were too solid and I got forced to the corner both games without any room to breathe. I’ll admit that part of me was super nervous because he just had this very intimidating presence(he’s really chill though).
The next day, there was a makeshift Alpha3 tournament. I ended up playing him in my 3rd match…I lost so bad, but I didn’t care. I was just ecstatic afterwards that I got to play his infamous V-Ryu that almost beat Daigo in the World Finals.
Hong, Boc, Kechu and PaulT are some Australians players I know, do they still playing?
[media=youtube]9Mq1B6eEwFo[/media]
A couple years ago I played Hong and Kechu in Melbourne, Aus. Don’t think I ran into BOC… and I told you about Paul T.
I bet these guys are still playing if they have a scene to play in.
It was EVO 08. I got to play Kindevu in casuals. It was one of his first times playing 3S. The reason I knew this is because Nuki was sitting there yelling at him telling him what to do. :lol: I got 1 game and he wrecked me the next 4. I shook his hand and said thank you. He nodded and shook back.
Side story, Alex Valle was in my ST pool the same year and when I got done with my match against someone he said I had a really good Dee Jay but needed to work on my zoning more but I was still a solid player. Which was awesome for me cause I had just started playing ST seriously a few months before that.
I’ve always wanted to play Paul T!
Also, everyone I’ve ever talked to from AU hypes up Hong so much. Need to play him too
I remember playing Pyrolee back in like, 2005, way back when FFA was still the mecca of 3rd Strike. I managed to score the first round against him (possibly due to him not knowing who the hell I was and probably not taking me that seriously), but then he destroyed me soundly in the 2nd and 3rd rounds. I’ll still never forget the look on my friends’ faces when they saw me take the first round, though.
First time against the Japanese was against MOV, though, at Sunroute. MOV didn’t even try. At least, against Sakonoko (at SCR), I stood a slim chance.
I used to think I was decent until I played kalisto [France].
Never beat him in the 2-3 months I played him.
At least he taught me to stop dicking around with Q.
ehhh
deshiken weaker than most people in tokyo? i have a bit of a hard time believing that
Deshiken’s one of those rare exceptions, but all the top players from Kyushu are beastly. Tokyo for the most part has better players though. It’s similar to how SoCal is considered to be better than the rest of the country, despite strong players from Texas and the East Coast.
This is why 2007 was a mindblower, considering no Tokyo teams made it in Top 4 3S.
Soul Calibur 4 was the first game I decided to be competitive with. Raped pretty much everyone in my local community with my Ivy.
Went to a Norcal gathering, was nervous as all hell. Went against Alex J. (shoutouts) He noticed I was nervous, and simply said:
“It’s natural to be nervous in your first tournament. I’m probably going to wreck you, but it’s the only way you’ll get better”.
He then proceeded to wreck me as promised, but those words really have been my credo to moving up the competitive ladder ever since. I honestly love it whenever I twitch up during tournaments, feel my fingers going numb, heart racing 100mph and proceeding to body or get bodied.
My name is Sora, and I’m a fighting game masochist/addict. 
I never got a chance to dive too much into the tournament scene because of circumstances. But playing on pc and at arcades against people from all over really helped a lot. 3s is the type of game where you learn a lot by taking tons of losses. I would also lose a lot in Chinatown fair back in the day. When you play people that are a million times better than you, and you commit to stay and try to learn through those ass whoopings, you get a lot better.
It gets to a point where you can barely play the game casually with friends who aren’t into 3s that much.