Fair enough, this is the ST forum after all.
I’m surprised to find out this is not how it’s done? I really had no idea it was just 5 guys playing in TN. I agree this need to be spread out but either way, good luck!
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It wasn’t exactly cheap for anyone (with the exception of Coth) to get to Tennessee. My airfare was like $454, riz said his was around $300+. I understand traveling to Japan isn’t cheap, so $50/tournament makes sense. But having the qualifier at a location that’s inconvenient to 8 out of 9 people really kills the turnout.**
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hey just some shout outs and i guess my thoughts on the debate of the tourney location…
first, just a generic shout out to all the players that came
Coth - very nice meeting you. definitely get with Wilson just like we talked about, he’s a great training partner and a mean Fei Long/Cammy/Zangief player in ST, probably some other characters too
Fudd - nice meeting you. i know you have been to SB in the past but i’m not sure if i really met you previously. and like Damdai said a huge thank you for being so great about recording tourneys all over the place from CA to IL to TN of all places
Damdai - way to wreak havoc on monitors and tourney participants alike. lol. and of course congrats to you =)
Riz - glad you made it down and we finally met in person! also congrats on qualifying sir =)
Rambo - great seeing you again and boy we got to play a bunch
Mars - great seeing you again as well. i know it wasn’t your best performance but still looking forward to meeting up again and seeing more Japanese Guile combos that none of the other US Guile players pull off
about the tourney location i just think it’s inevitable that no matter what location it’s hosted in there are going to be folks that get screwed out of coming. i know in years past when there were qualifiers in other places like California i would sit there and think man i wish it could be closer and more reasonable for me to attend. i am fortunate right now to have that and i know it. however i think you can argue that it’s still fair considering nowadays folks seem to travel everywhere. i see players from California (for example again) going to the Keits tourney in the midwest, i see them attending stuff like CEO in Florida on the opposite end of our country. they do attend stuff even further than Tennessee so i dunno…
now Kuroppi said to split them up more evenly which would help alleviate the traveling concerns overall. the only problem with that of course is that you are then pretty much forced to have players from different regions, whereas in the case of qualifiers this year 2 of the players came from the same region of New York. i’m the oddball from middle of nowhere Indiana. lol. it was still a healthy 8 hour drive for me but like i said i know how fortunate i am to have something like this so nearby, relatively speaking. not a bad idea to split up the regions though, maybe our country should try it next year.
one more thing that i really want to add because i feel very strongly about this and i’ve been saying this for a year now since the creation of last year’s team. what happened all the times when the US held qualifiers in places like California and held them under the true format of 3 man teams? with the exception of the odd year when AE was hosted and the Wolfe bros. qualified, all our ST teams lost first round. i am saying i believe Wilson has already done a great job in one year of hosting things his way (3 singles tourneys to decide the team) and hosting things in Nashville, TN of all places.
these players that qualified in years past have had their chances but on just one attempt last year’s team made up of east coast players went out there and advanced to the 2nd round, in the process defeating one of the most infamous and dangerous Japanese ST teams which is K and Toutanki’s double T. Hawk team. congrats to last year’s team, btw. and again even if it looks like it i am not trying to stir up east/west coast junk. i’m from the midwest anyway so we don’t even get to participate in the discussion on this stuff. lol. i’m just shooting from the hip and stating facts that can’t be argued. Wilson is off to a good start despite the special qualifying format, despite the pricing of entry, and despite the tourney location so let’s run with this method for a couple years and then look back and judge how it went. that is my thoughts on all this =)
I don’t disagree that it’s really inconvenient for everyone else that came. I only had to ask for one day off from work.
Outside of that, I could only attend one event per year since I only get one week of vacation a year. I imagine this isn’t that different from like everyone most of the time.
If it’s held in TN again next year, TN might at least be able to provide better competition. Next time around. 
EDIT: Just watched some of my matches. 
All I’m worried about is that the SBO community or whatever will look at this turnout and wonder why they even bother to give us a spot if no one is going to show up.
12 people is just pathetic. No matter what kind of excuse you want to pull out, out of a community of over 300 players of ST/HDR only 12 bothered to come out to TN that weekend. You’d figure that one of the most important USA ST tournaments this year would get a few more entrants. It was arcade, on semsitsu (sp?) controls, offline, all of what you want is there. But no one shows.
Why should SBO continue to give us spots if we the players just don’t show up?
It was a good thing Wilson charged $50 per tournament, if he hadn’t the tournament winners wouldn’t have had much money to pay for the trip. Even then it wasn’t a whole lot, but it helps.
It is still some good exposure to have foreign players there. Also, as I have said, some qualifiers in Japan that had fierce teams had few entrants, perhaps because other local players knew they had no chance. Not everyone in Japan is that good.
SBO quals regulerly get way lower entrants due to the commitment it requires. This is true for nearly every game.
More like kaillera represent! lol I remember learning how to play ST with these fools over kaillera, I’m proud of you both. Oh, and Damdai no slouch either haha. Congrats to Team USA do us proud.
Does anyone know if you are required to play the character that you qualified with at SBO?
That was true in the past years, I see no reason why that would change now. But I haven’t read the rules this year so I can’t say for sure.
It was sanwa gohan
It probably has something to do with it being in, I don’t know, Fucking Tennesee, don’t you think?
Also $50 a tourney
ah, I know the other control panels that damdai was messing with after he broke the other vs cab looked like it had seimitsu multiple gate attachments on it. Though with all trouble the cab we used had I didn’t look to see if it actually was seimitsu or sanwa.
Oh, well I was going by Jason saying on the thread page that it was going to be sanwa. So if it was possibly changed i don’t know about that.
How many of those people actually played? There were some pools that were missing up to 70/80 pct of the players. Tekken had more people actually end up playing the tournament than HDR. Also, many of those who played HDR (vast majority?) weren’t even serious players who practiced the game or truly cared for their placement anyway.
As has been addressed before in several other threads, that “Evo entrant/2nd most popular game” argument can be very misleading. An honest look at the facts reveal the argument shouldn’t be used the way it most commonly has on these forums.
Because you have to travel to Nashville, pay $150, for a chance to get to pay more to go to Japan.
If SBO travel and lodging costs were covered completely by the community you can bet there would be over 100 entrants. Not many of us have 2 grand to blow for a trip for Japan. Interesting thought… Offer full expense paid trips to the 3 qualifiers next year and see how many people show. 100 people X $50 = $5000 which would cover most of it. Not to mention most would enter all 3 tourneys to try to qualify which would easily cover everything. Even could make it a pre-pay / pre-registration event. There are many creative ways to get this a better event and get more people to turn out. After all, we want the best players representing the USA, not the guys with the deepest pockets.