Evo 2k11 Trip Part 3:

Me, Dieminion, Sanford

Evo 2011:

Part 3:

Arrived back to the Rio at around 4:30 pm…it was still a hour and a half before the pool starts again, I hung around the venue for a bit watching other people play, and trying to find out who made it out, but it wasn’t possible because there were way too many pools + players. When the pools ended, the EVO staffs were announcing player names of who goes to which pool/station. The first one they were announcing, I don’t remember who was suppose to be in there, but I was like “alright, this pool doesn’t sound too hard” and yet I wasn’t in that pool. They kept announcing and I was cool with most of the pools until I hear this pool “Poongko, Fchamp, Shiro, Floe….(I remember there were a lot of hard match ups for Ryu…don’t remember the players exactly)” then I was talking to my friend, “HOLY SHIT, ANY POOL BUT THIS POOL!!” and the announcer continues listing the names and when I didn’t hear my name I thought I was safe…but FUCK NO, he went “ANDDDDDDD Air”. Great, I was the last on the list; I was banging my head on the chair and went WTF!! WHY ME!

Anyways, I went to my station and get ready for my matches. I took a glance at the bracket sheet and Floe looked at me and said “Our pool is ridiculous” and I agreed….my first match was against Ramen Addict (Adon) player. I beat him and my next match was supposed to be Mr.SNK and I was pretty confident beating him since it’s a Honda. Then the staff suddenly came up to me and said “Oh, I made a mistake, you were suppose to play “Scott Bender” first”, so then Ramen Addict got another life and I had to start over again, and I ended up losing to Scott Bear’s Sakura. First I wasn’t familiar with the Sakura match up, second I was going over the match up in my mind against Honda and lastly I was under a lot of pressure since I was already put into losers. The matches against Scott were very close, but I totally underperformed or I don’t think I played how I used to play. I played way too safe and backed off after every knock down even though I knew I was safe to do mix ups on Sakura, and not just that, I missed lots and lots of combos, or I should say ALL my combos. I was MAD salty after I lost, all the training I did in Japan (FUCK YEAH, ONLY like 3 match ups in Japan, Yun Yang Fei Long) and how confident I was at this tournament…I was very upset and disappointed the people from Canada who were supporting me. I was so salty that I couldn’t think in my mind, I don’t know how to explain that feeling…it’s like anger with sadness….I was angrier when I know that I am the better player and could’ve won that match.

I saw that Ramen Addict made it hella far because he was playing Shiro (Shiro was at the side of the bracket),I like how he got another chance when he already lost. I forgot what happened after, I remembered that I went to eat with the CCG staffs then went back to the venue and watched some of the matches…then I forgot. There were still a lot of people who came up to me to ask for pictures and autographs also asking how I did, it wasn’t a great feeling and I am sure the pictures I took with them weren’t great.  I think I went to the money match room after the venue was closed, but the room was filled with people, moreover it was stinking hot, I didn’t stayed for too long and after that I went out to the strip with my friend and gambled for a bit then we went back to the hotel and slept.

MM Room

The next day was just Marvel, no point of me being there, I was at the venue for a little bit then off to the strip with some friends and walked around + gambled. I went back to the venue because I wanted to see how my team mate David “CCG|Detrixmantix” is doing at Marvel, and I couldn’t find him. However, my manager “Troy” told me that he got top 16? and I was very proud of him! I went to the MM room again, I stayed longer but it had more players than last night. I stayed until the room was closed and headed back down, after a short walk I saw a lot of people were drinking at the bar. Mago was super drunk, he and other people lifted me outside from the fence inside the bar and everybody was going crazy (in a good way), it was a good feeling, everybody was having fun, even though that I can’t drink I had a great time chilling at the bar with them and meeting some new people. I forgot what happened after…I think I went to eat or something? Again I went to gamble with my friend (he played another game because he didn’t like the game I was playing), so I kept playing (game was called PAIGOW POKER). While I was gambling, people (gamers) were watching from behind…..it felt really uncomfortable because it wasn’t street fighter that I was playing…they didn’t say anything but I kept on winning my hands and one guy who introduced himself (sorry that I forgot your name) and said “you should make a guide/dvd of how to play this game” -___-…..I mean there’s like 10% skills and 90% luck, I am sure there’s nothing that can help you win in casino table games. I stopped when I made about a hundred, went to check out my friend, I think he lost quite a bit…but we went back to the room together and I played some mini games on my iphone before I went to bed.

David "CCG|Detrimantix" Perras

These paragraphs are not really EVO related, but I am going to write it anyways. I think as a player myself, I’ve been underestimating the competition in NA or maybe over confident during tournaments. In casuals it’s different; I can play my best, not representing anything but myself and no pressure. I do take the game seriously, but life wouldn’t let me do so due to work, gf, families and FUCKING BILLS. Especially my job, working in a restaurant that starts at 4 pm and ends at 1-2 midnight, leaving me no extra time to practice games. However, since I win almost 95% of my matches online (Even though online is laggy as fuck), so I thought making a trip to Japan will greatly benefit me. Therefore, like I mentioned in my blog before that I took two weeks off work to train in Japan and I mean I got a lot out of the trip, but I mean, this game is really based on how well you know about the match ups (Daigo vs Poongko was a really good example) and yet, Yun and Yang were the most characters that I played against in Japan and there were none in my pools. Anyways, just last minute training was totally not enough, I can be honest and say that I never practiced when AE was released due to poor netcode. Besides these reasons, I think the main reason of me losing or not performing well is the fact of how I think during tournaments. When I lose a round or a set, I would think “how to beat him” instead of “why/how did I lost”. For example, let say I am leading about 30% in life when my opponent has like 5% left or a pixel, whatever, then I try to attempt a throw, then OK, he did some wake up reversal into Ultra n then I lost. So after I lost that round I would probably say to myself “ok, if this situation comes up again, I will do an overhead or whatever that’s not a throw”. Alright I win but I mean that probably only works against that opponent because I read him or adapted to his game play or I should say I was trying to be too smart and gambled and this is an example of “How to beat him”.

What if I put it this way, same example “leading, and attempted to land an attack and got reversal attacked and lost that round” and then I should ask myself this “Why/how did I lost? Hmmm, because I tried to do something on his wake up which was really risky, I should just back off and be safe and hold my lead”. With this logic it will work against any opponents because YOU ARE learning your mistakes from your experience instead of playing too smart to outplay your opponents because it might not work on the next opponent because everybody plays differently. (Those were just some obvious examples, I don’t play like that :P) I mean even though if you know that you can beat that player, in a tournament you should give full respect and treat him like the best player in the world or something. After a lost, being salty is important because that means you take the game seriously and that’s how you get better naturally, but not TOO SALTY that you forgot your mistake and asking yourself this question “WHY/HOW DID I LOST”. I mean when I lost to Scott Bear I just couldn’t or didn’t think right, first I was just trying to blame everything to the staff, but after when I was calmed and asked myself the question “Why did I lost” then I remembered the main reason was that I didn’t apply pressure on his wake up and let him up for free everytime.

I think I am still very young in this scene, started since Canada Cup, so less than a year, I have much more to learn and hopefully with the “why did I lose” point of view I can improve faster and do better in the future. I’ve been so serious about gaming since EVO that I actually quit my job and found a new one with “normal” hours. I also been creating gathering events in my local scene just so that I can practice offline (online is a complete joke..not that I don’t want to play, it’s the fact that I couldn’t play), I also try to help other players in my scene in order to help them improve faster and build up the competition.

Blah blah blah, I realized I spent so much time in these last few paragraphs that I am already tired of typing, so the next part of Evo post will be the Last part, stay tuned!