It’s moreso what happened to the characters around Guile as what happened to Guile directly. The Sagat match is a good example, wherein Sagat’s damage reduction alone allows Guile to hang in a little longer.
A copy/pasted Vanilla Guile would do well in Super because of all the balancing tweaks. Guile with a new Ultra and some new options/properties would be even better, and he is.
You should teach yourself to play as minimalistic as possible. And to fight temptation. This is the biggest difference between tournament players and casual players. Tournament players usually don’t hit too many buttons, or panic. They generally focus on trying to find things instead of trying to force things. Of course I don’t know what type of player you are, but since you only have two times to lose before you’re out, focus on the following things:
Just work on baiting, walking, and whiffing safe pokes. That way you get a feel of what type of opponent you are up against. The is the biggest thing. If your opponent likes to jump, there is normally a reason. This means he usually doesn’t have good ground. Typically taking the ground way from these people is good.
Notice what moves your opponent love to stick out where you are close, and notice if they mash out moves when they are under pressure. This means they are nervous, and they will start to throw out attacks. Know your matchups, your frames, and your counters.
Does the person keep attacking? People who like to attack a lot will usually do really unsafe stuff to stay on the offense. Why do they not want to be on defense? Do they have issues blocking low, blocking overheads, teching throws, or escaping mixups? Learn to exploit these weaknesses.
If someone turtles, trying to predict what they are going for. If they love to stay at ranges and stick out certain pokes or jump back in the corner learn to bait them. The best thing you can do is to chip them and wait. They are looking for a good opportunity to hit you, if you can successfully bait this, they will start to question their gameplan.
And the biggest thing is be patient. Patience is the biggest difference between loser bracket and winners bracket.
My strategy is to play really defensively, block everything and look for throw techs. I start to see if my opponent is getting frustrated, and then that’s when I start to pull out the stops. At the end of vanilla, I played a Blanka player in a local tournament. It wasn’t a huge one. The first game I purposely played really defensively, not sticking out many moves, so I can see what he was up to. I noticed his attack patterns and shut down his Blanka in the subsequent games. I was able to take his air game from him, and block his crossups. I also notice he didn’t incorporate throws into his mixup, and I took advantage of that by blocking his attacks and counter poking him when I knew I was at the right distance. That way I was able to completely shutdown his Blanka. Remember, in tournaments, it’s more than just a battle of characters, or a battle of knowlege. It’s a battle of strategy and minds. So try to be unique in your approach so your strategy isn’t easy to figure out.
Good luck with your first tournament, and you have the support of the SRK Guile family.
Kich, you don’t need to practice anything magical or new. Tech throws. Zone well. Stay solid. You already know how to play. Let us know how you do man!
The biggest issue for going to your first tournament, no matter how small it is, will probably be nerves. People watching, people yelling, cheering, booing… heck, just being at the tournament - for some reason, your brain may lock up. You’ll realize you’re playing like garbage, that you’re not yourself, that you’re only using a fraction of your standard arsenal. If this happens to you, like it did for me - its fine. There is nothing you can do about it. Just go to more tournaments. After 2-3 of them, that problem will go away.
The first tournament I ever went to, I was so nervous (for no reason, and I knew I had no reason to be nervous) that I regressed to a playstyle that more closely resembled the me of 2 years prior. I went 2 and out. Embarrassing. It took me four tournaments to quell my nerves down to zero, and finish a respectable second place.
Don’t do what I did at ECT2. (Perfect example of my first tournament experience and did the worst imagineable things by going full force and not thinking my way out.)
great advice
does anyone else find that they end up losing to really bad players when fatigued?
i played too much ssf4 today. i lost 400pp and was losing left, right and centre to crappy players because i had played too much and gone into not using my brain mode.
i get too impatient after a while. trading fireballs with different players is cool for 3-4 or so matches. but after the eighth ryu in a row i kinda just lose it.
Branh0913 I remmember our matches and I dont remmember making you jump at all. You like to defend and you do it well.
Playing too much anything makes you fatigued and shitty. Hell, when I used to play in a jam band, we’d sometimes end up sitting around together on weekends and playing for 7-8 hours more or less straight. By the end of it the jams were noticably shittier… its just hard to go true full-force concentration on anything for very extended periods of time. It becomes stressful.
I need help with option select. I hold Down-back and tap throw continuously during a block string. From what I understand if they mess up the timing, crouch lk should come out. If they go for a grab I’d tech. But this is not the case, When they go for a grab the Tech doesn’t happen or I see cr.lk animation just before getting thrown. Any advice is appreciated. BTW: I play online.
This happens due to subtle lag online, which is why i refuse to play online matches. I play offline more often so I dont have to put up with that bullshit
Hey, why does Guile hitbox data not given to us? Why? WHY?
Hello guys, Guile veteran from SF2 days here, trying to get around in the weird world of (S)SF4.
I have huge problems doing Sonic Hurricane on my Dualshock 3. In one hundred tries i was able to do it one (!) time. I must be doing something wrong, I guess… 
Any advice is welcome.
i really dont know how it could easier, its just charge back, forward, back, forward. maybe you should use the analog stick for that motion rather than d-pad if you are using the d-pad. with the d-pad you might hit the up or downs accidentally, due to the fact that this buttons aren’t very big
Either do the motion a little slower than you think you would need to, or delay the PPP input very slightly. Or both.
Well, that’s my impression as well, so I don’t really get it why I don’t get it nailed down.
Thanks for the replies, guys… 
Interesting, when I map lp/mp/hp to one button, it’s really easy to do the SH, even out of a combo. It just seems impossible for me to press those three buttons simultaneously.
Like always, guess I need to practice more. 
It’s funny when you beat people up with guile and then they choose him. Always makes me smile.
lol. this.
I dispise any and all mirror matches with any character in any game. I basically, just check out the second I see it. I have no clue why either.
i really like the guile mirror, theres no bullshit, it’s so methodical. i like watching old st guile mirrors too, that stuff is super exciting to me. i think sonic hurricane tarnished the guile mirror.