I want to share with the NW community my tips on doing better than you deserve to in a tournament. I credit these tips for placing higher than my fair skill level in many tournaments. In other words, following these tips has let me place higher than people who were better than me.
Sleep. Get 8-10 hours of sleep before your first round. This makes a huge difference. Later on in the day people become physically and mentally tired. Tired people make mistakes, don’t play well, and stop caring. I’ve beat players much better than me in tournaments because they didn’t care anymore and wanted to watch some other game. If you’re starting to feel tired, go to your room for an hour and take a nap. This isn’t an old man tip, I was doing this when I was 20.
Drink a lot. Drink lots of water or sports drinks (gatorade, powerade, etc). I’ve happily spent $20 on overpriced sports drink at the local 7-11 while my opponents were too cheap to do so. They didn’t drink, and they got tired, and I won. If you aren’t pissing every hour you aren’t drinking enough. I suggest staying away from soda, as sugar will get you high for the first few hours but then you’ll have a sugar crash and get tired. Drink when you aren’t thirsty. If you’re thirsty, it’s too late and you are tired.
Eat well and frequently. While your opponents are getting pizza and chips at the food court, get a subway sandwich, or something healthy. Make sure to get protein and carbs. Don’t wait until you are super hungry to get food. If you’re that hungry, then you are tired, and your play suffers. When you wake up in the morning, go get breakfast. Your opponents will be rushing down to play as fast as possible, hurting their long term chances. Take advantage of their mistake and eat first thing in the morning.
Take breaks. Take breaks fequently. Take small breaks by taking 5 min walks out and stretching your legs, and take several hour long breaks (go to the pool, or the gym, or something physical). You’ll get cramped sitting on the floor or on a chair playing games all the time, and standing up is also very tiring. Taking breaks also gives your brain a chance to rest and process. You know how you play like shit at the end of a 4 hour gaming session? That’s your brain needing a break. Frequent breaks lets your mind process and re-evaluate your gameplay. Your opponents will be waiting in line to play sf4 and will have been on a 40 game rotation for another game. They’ll be weak and tired, but they won’t know it. You’ll be physically and mentally prepared and refreshed, and strongly motivated.
Doing these four things makes a big difference. I’d say it’s about equivalent to starting the round with your opponent already having taken 25% damage. That’s a big difference! The difference is magnified the later on you get into the tournament. Everyone’s jazzed up on round one, but when it’s 8pm and the tournament has been going on for 6 hours, fatigue sets in, and motivation and condition makes a big difference.
Tournaments are an endurance sport. Treat it seriously as such and you will have a big advantage.
Nice thread Julien. It’s interesting to read what you put because I do almost the exact opposite from what you do.
-I don’t eat before tourneys. I feel as if eating makes you like, groggy or something.
-I used to drink a lot of pop before Marvel tourneys. I believed it made me more alert. Not so much anymore, I do it every once in a while though.
-Back in the day, Rat used to tell me about how he wouldn’t sleep the night before a tourney. I couldn’t believe he did that, but I actually tried it myself and it didn’t work for me. I gotta have sleep hahah. Not too much, but just enough.
-Personally, I like to have a gameplan for all my matches. It helps even more if I know who I’m fighting beforehand, that way I add even more to the plan itself. When I don’t know who I’m playing, I just set a standard goal for myself concerning their character selection. For example, if they pick Honda or whatever, naturally I wanna keepaway, but I’ll try to learn what they’re capable of while I’m at it. Can this player store throw? Can this player use neutral jump fierce well? Stuff like that. I think having a gameplan means you’re already halfway closer to winning. Now it’s just executing what you have in mind. I like being able to make the necessary changes to a plan mid-match as well. Flexibility!
-Also I never underestimate people anymore after losing to Dan’s Dictator one ST tourney. So now I always stick to my guns and play my best.
I think if you eat a lot in one sitting, you will get this effect. But having multiple small meals will keep you energized without having the groggy effect. So eat 1/2 of a 6inch sub in one sitting, then have the other half 90 mins later
I really think soda will hurt you in the long run. You’ll be at the tournament for 12+ hours – I think soda really hurts for that timeframe.
A great player can win even with big disadvantages like no sleep. This may be more a testament to Rat’s skill rather than a tip others should emulate.
This is a great post, and something that has been missing in my preparation. I will do this!
Completely agree. Last evo I was against a “random” chun li and though why not pick boxer for fun? That was a serious mistake that cost me the game and the match. I have a very bad habit of underestimating people I’ve never heard of.
my body just falls apart during weekend long tourneys…no sleep, bad eating, etc.
yes, eat, but smaller, frequent enough, and depends on what you eat. yes sanwiches are better, but some foods will just make you tired…like sandwiches lol. digesting bread and meat together does that…but better than a lot of other stuff.
sleep is usually the thing that messes me up the most. playing games back at the hotel, going to sleep late/getting up early, and sleeping on the floor/couch. I was always destroyed and destroyed in games the next day
I have a .txt file with strats on it. Julian has a similar tactic. You bet your ass I will print out this cheat sheet and review at least the evening before the tournament. Just to make sure I don’t forget anything.
You guys don’t know this, but I actually have Yun combos tattooed to my ass.
If you see another dude behind me while I have my pants around my ankles, they’re just learning some sick combos. I swear.
Avoiding fatigue at big tournaments is a rough task; especially if you are attending on a tight budget. The nerves/anticipation of playing EVO tourney matches alone can be somewhat exhausting in itself. When you take into account the long ass day, plus the fact that you may or may not have had to sleep in a chair or on the floor with 9 other people in your hotel room, just makes it that much worse. Tournament fatigue has screwed me in the past. Don’t let it happen to you!
As long as I ate beforehand, I was alright. It’s all just about getting over your first game jitters and getting in the right state of mind. I usually find myself doing better in losers brackets cause the nerves are gone at that point for me for some reason.
As far as the nervousness thing goes, I simply concentrate on doing my best. There’s no time to be nervous. When you play your best everything will be fine, if you win, great, if you lose, at least you could definitively say that your opponent was simply better than you were. Besides that, at the very core of it, doesn’t the idea of getting nervous over a video game seem absurd? That’s how I look at it anyway, haven’t gotten nervous in a real longtime.
I would always end up thinkin’ about the hundreds of hours I spent practicing and the money I spent getting to the tournament, and how it was all culminating up to this one match, and couldn’t help but feel some anxiety. It can be pretty bomb to play under those conditions if you are somehow playing well though.
I remember for NW Majors I had 10 hours of sleep and woke up with a headache at 3pm. Then I didn’t eat anything until after the tournament, because Brian was there to pick me up as soon as I woke up. Then I stole some of Wenzel’s lemonade before the tournament, and I was fine. Ah, youthful vigor.
