3v3 Random TeamsTournament this Saturday @ Bugis! (12/12/09)

Ok, I don't know why the previous announcement got deleted but here's the post again.

Time: 6:30 registrations! Since there's no pre-registration this time, please try to register by 6:30 as we need to start drawing teams by 6:50.

As for the prizes and format (single/double elim) we're still working these things out.

13th Nov Beginner's Tournament Results!

Sorry I'm late with this, but better late than never, no?

Results:

First- Yong Tau Foo (Rufus). Coming up from the loser's bracket, Yong Tau Foo RTSDed his way into first place!

Second- Zhen Ci (Honda). Playing impressively with jab> Fierce HHS combos, Zhen Ci won the winner's bracket, only to lose twice to Yong Tau Foo in the Grand Finals. Remember kids- it's important to know *all* match ups with your main!

Third- Ash (Akuma). Throwing impressive FADC combos left and right, Ash knocked Yong Tau Foo into the losers bracket, only to get peaced out by Zhen Ci, then Yong Tau Foo.

Photos here:
http://www.facebook.com/photo_search.php?oid=73732752808&view=all
(thanks to Benjamin for taking the photos and uploading them!)


Battle notes:

Loser's Semi final: Joseph Tan vs Yong Tau Foo

Yong Tau Foo played a commanding first round, getting the early combo and rushing down the rest of the match. Joseph took the lead in the second round, but was unable to hold it and got baited into eating an Ex Messiah> fadc> Ultra from Yong Tau Foo. Fighting for his tournament life, Joseph tried to zone out Yong Tau Fu out, but Yong Tau Foo closed the distance with a df+ Middle kick roll and wins the game with a throw.

Winner's Final: Zhen Ci vs Ash

Ash took the first round by pressuring well with stand HK and Demon flips and Zhen ci dominated the second round with painful HHS combos. In the 3rd round, we saw great use of c.LP and s.HK pokes by Zhen Ci. Ash tried to come back with more demon flip and s.HK pressure, but missed a Demon Flip reset in the corner, allowing Zhen Ci to seal his lead with a Hundred Hand Slap > FADC> Oichio throw tick. Ash was a hairsbreadth away from stealing the victory when a Fireball he threw was jumped over by Zhen Ci- Ash FADCed out of the fireball's recovery and Ultraed, trying to catch Zhen Ci as he reached the ground, but missed due to a split second's hesitation, and lost the game.

Loser's Finals: Yong Tau Foo vs Ash

Yong Tau Foo learnt fast after earlier loss to Ash and won this one with strong tactical play, anti-airing Demon Flips with d.MP and EX snake strikes. At a crucial point in the last round, Ash misses the low short combo, sealing his tournament fate.

Grand finals: Yong Tau Foo vs Zhen Ci

Game 1:
The game starts with lots of dive kick pressure by Yong Tau Foo and a clutch Ex Snake Strike to beat a Sumo Splash attempt. Zhen Ci launches a comes back with an Oichio tick but fails to keep the pressure on Yong Tau Fu and loses the round. In Round 2, Zhen Ci manages to put on some pressure, using forward jump MPs to beat Yong Tau Foo's crouch MP anti-air attempts. Pushing Yong Tau Foo in the corner, Zhen Ci applies pressure with vertical jump fierces, but fails to control Yong Tau Foo, and gets comboed into an Ultra and losing the game.

Game 2
Zhen Ci starts the match by trying to keep Yong Tau Foo out with jump fierces, and gets the lead when he lands a Oichio. Zhen Ci applies pressure with more jump MPs. Yong Tau Foo manages to get Zhen Ci him into the corner, but fails to capitalise and gets pushed out by a headbutt, and gets killed by jump fierces trying to get back in. Yong Tau Foo dominates the second round with dive kick rush down. At one point Zhen Ci manages to come back with his Ultra autocorrecting and nailing a dive kick cross up. However, the ultra doesn't nearly do enough damage, and Yong Tau Foo, still holding on to his life lead wins the second round. The last round starts with more dive kick pressure from Yong Tau Foo. At one point, a blocked dive kick is followed by another immediate dive kick which beat's Zhen Ci's throw attempt, leading into a Tornado combo which pushes Zhen Ci into the corner. Yong Tau Fu holds the lead by reversing with an EX Messiah Kick whenever Zhen Ci gets any momentum. Showing signs of an epic comeback, Zhen Ci lands an impressive Jump mp> stand MP> Fierce HHS> Roundhouse combo... but ultimate gets killed when he runs into yet another Ex Messiah kick.

A big thanks to all who took part and all who helped organise this. See you all at the next tournament!

Beginner Tournament this Fri! 13 November

Beginner Tournament this Fri!

Beginner Tournament

Format: 1v1 Double Elimination
Restrictions: Any player with a top 8 placing in any previous tournament
Prize: A Prize Medal for the top 3 spots
Entry fee: $1!
Changing of character during tournament is NOT allowed
Time: 7pm start. Registration opens at 6:30pm
Player cap: 64 Entrants. First come, first served. You may pre-register by registering on the Round1.sg main page, or by posting here!

SF4 sound-action phone-straps!!

That's right. Along with our mystery donor, Round1.sg will be giving away 4 of these beauties to those attending the ULTRA! Chalet which is THIS WEEKEND! If you're not one of the 4 to win one, don't fret. We'll also be selling extra pieces at a very reasonable price.

In case you don't know what these are, here's a video to whet your appetite.

2v2 This Friday, 23rd October

Casual, simple tournament. =)

Time: 7pm

Where: TKA Virtualand, Bugis Junction

Rule 1: No same character allowed in a team. Example: Ryu / Ryu is not allowed.

Rule 2: We are not allowed to team with another member who was previously in your 2v2 or 3v3 teams. Example: Real Deal / Elcie, Real Deal / Elton or Real Deal / SBK in previous 3v3 are not allowed..

Character switching not allowed. It is the winning team's responsibility to report results to the admin/marshal staff.

$2.00 entry fee per person, open to all levels. Prizes are tokens = to the pot, graciously sponsored by TKA Virtualand. Do visit the Round1 SF4 forums for the tournament and partner-finder threads. Register and pay at the venue. Counter opens @ 6:30 and tournament will start 7pm sharp. See you there!

Want to request a class for the chalet?

The exact program for the upcoming Round1 chalet isn't finalized yet. Want to request a session for a specific character or topic? You can do so in this thread and if demand is there, we'll do our best to meet it with the best people available.

Sept 12 Beginner's and 3v3 tournament results+videos!

First off, our second beginner's tournament was a smashing success with over 60 participants! At the end of the day, it came down to the top 3 and here they are:

1st: Khan
2nd: John
3rd: Nico

Congrats to the winners and I hope everyone had a good time.

Secondly, we had our very first 3v3 tournament on the same day and here are the results.

1st: Team GONGTAO with Angeline (Sagat), Gackt (Ryu) and Peihoon (Akuma)
2nd: Team 3 Paths of Pain with KT (Ryu), Ganguro (Sagat) and Leslie (Abel)
3rd: Team Happy with Evante (Blanka), SY (Rufus) and Xian (Ryu)

Congrats to all winners, and here are the final 3 matches of the night: Peihoon AGAIN bringing on the hurt.

October Frenzy part 1: Round1 Chalet is GO

Click image for full size

As I mentioned in my previous post, October is going to be a happening month. First up, what's going on at the end of October? It's none other than our very first Chalet Outing! We'll have at least 4 console setups over 2 days set to free play. Also, we've gotten the best players in Singapore to share their knowledge of the game and characters. There will be Q&A, tutorial masterclass sessions. Finally, we'll end off with a bang: our very first random select 4v4 tournament, where you'll never know who you'll be paired up with!

To top it up, we'll have a BBQ and and some sports/games, so this is going to be the perfect opportunity to have some relaxing fun and make friends with everyone from the Street Fighter 4 community. Stay tuned as more details on what classes will be available come up, and do register here ASAP to make logistics easier for us. Hope to see you there!

PS: Big thanks to Matte82 for the awesome poster!

Watch for the end of October...

The June to July period was a high or the community, with lots of tournaments culminating into K.O. which saw the highest level SF action on Singapore soil ever.

Now comes October. Just before things get crazy at the end of the year with exams and Christmas, is October. And October will be very, very special. 2 big events: 1, you already know of which is going to be insane. The other, is a very pleasant surprise. Be prepared for the end of October. =)

Malaysians in town

2 of Malaysia's top players with be in town this weekend. Keep a lookout for them @ Bugis. =)

More details on this thread.

Hurry, only 3 team slots available for this Saturday's team tournament!

As the title suggests. As of now, there are 21 teams registered via the official channel.

Due to overwhelming response, we'll be capping the total number of teams at 24 so that we can finish the tournament by 11.

As for the beginner's tournament, there is no player cap so if you consider yourself a beginner in SF4 and haven't registered yet, please do so right away!

Sept 12 tournament details!

Ok, finally, the details for the 12th Sept Round1.sg and TKA Virtualand tournaments are out.

Street Fighter IV Beginners Tournament

- Time & Venue: 12th Sep 2009 3pm @ TKA Bugis Virtualand
- Format: 1v1 double elimination
- No character change
- Fee: $2

Street Fighter IV 3v3 Team Tournament

- Time & Venue: 12th Sep 2009 7pm @ TKA Bugis Virtualand
- Format: KOF style 3v3 double elimination

Restrictions
- Each team must have 1 beginner
- No same characters allowed in a team ie. all 3 must be different characters.
- Fee: $6 per team
- 1 team captain to be selected

Some important notes for both tournaments:
- The 'pot' will be lesser this time: $1 for every tournament entrant, fully sponsored by TKA Virtualand. Tournament fee will now go towards covering Round1 admin costs etc.
- On the other hand, machines will be set to FREE PLAY! =) Basically, this means less winnings for the top 3 and more savings for everyone.
- Pot distribution same as always: 1st place- 50%, 2nd place- 30%, 3rd place- 20%


FAQS: Please read!!!

Q: What's the rules for '3v3 KOF Style'?
A: Winner stays. Beginner must be first person to go. 2nd and 3rd player can be decided after 1st player loses.

Q: Who can join the beginner's tournament?
A: If you consider yourself a beginner, you may join. Who are beginners?
From Dictionary.com
[bi-gin-er]
–noun
1. a person or thing that begins.
2. a person who has begun a course of instruction or is learning the fundamentals: swimming for beginners.
3. a person who is inexperienced; novice.

Please note the words in bold. Even if you've never joined/won a tournament before, please have some integrity and DON'T JOIN this tournament if you feel like you are an intermediate player and above, IE: have a good grasp of this game's fundamentals or you are an EXPERIENCED player.

And last but not least, Round1 reserves the right to decline your Beginner's Tournament entry, which should be considered a compliment right? =)

Q: I can't find any teammates! Please help!
A: You can post a request in this thread. Good luck!

Q: Where can I register? Why should I pre-register?
A: Register for both tournaments here. Pre-registration helps us facilitate the tournament better, and ensures that you get a slot in case we get an overwhelming response.

Q: Why is m_flo24 so handsome?
A: I'm not sure why, but none can resist his charms!

Q: I have a question to ask that's not in this list of questions asked! Where can I ask?
A: The official Round 1 thread.

Q: Is that all?
A: Yes for now.

If you skipped through all those questions, just remember to register for either/both tournaments here.

It's been a while since we last had a tournament. I can't wait!

Japan pictures galore! (part 1)

Things would have been better if I could upload these pictures while I was in Japan but at last, I get to do them here! I hope that, in giving everyone a taste of what it's like to go on a 'gaming expedition' in the land where Street Fighter was born and where the top players play, we may be inspired to broaden our horizons overseas and spread the name of Singapore's fighting game scene. Personally, I want to see our very own events become as big as theirs someday!

(Remember that you can click all the pictures to see them in their full resolutions!)


The aftermath of Godsgarden, 7am, featuring some players you may know. The guy in front is Haunts from Iplaywinner.com. Guy on the right with yellow hair is DbKoopa, Korea's best Third Strike player. To his left are SBO partners, Ichi in white, and none other than Mizoteru in, what else, olive green. Guy in the back to my left is Magus1234. Rchan looks wasted lol!


The Godsgarden technical set-up.


This is just about 1/4th of the amount of PS3s and sticks they had available for us to use.


The hosts for the early part of the night, Itabashi Zangeif (right) and I Forgot His Name. >_<


The scene on the street right outside the Godsgarden venue. Apparently there was some festival being held. Lots of hot chicks in Kimonos.=p (not in picture. BTW is that OBAMA hanging from the ceiling?!)


Godsgarden was held at a bar converted to host the event. You can see the fully-functional bar counter at the back, complete with an old-school jukebox.


The best player in the world himself, Mago, right after he kicked me and Rchan's butts. He's a really nice guy, one of the few Japanese who were really comfortable around foreigners.


It was really nice running into DbKoopa at Godsgarden. Because I meet so many people though Street Fighter, its possible to run into a guy I met in Korea in Japan. He plays a mean Rufus too.


Me and Rchan with Kindevu (top Rufus). Some say he and Anthony "Ah_Bao" have the same 'pattern'. Your thoughts?


Tokido (top 2 Akuma in the world and ever-present name in the fighting game scene). Incredibly friendly towards foreigners and also the default English translator for the 'top player's circle' lol.


Uryo, best Viper in the world. What the heck is written on his t-shirt anyways?


Akimo, best Honda in the world. He does Hundred-Hand-Slap combos with so much ease, you can't tell by looking at his hands.

And now, more pics with top players I managed to snag elsewhere during my trip.


Voooh!-Tetsu!!!aahhhhhh!! (Japanese tournament announcers have to say his name like that everytime lol), El Fuerte hero to the world.


Right after a soon-to-be legendary(epic video coming soon!) all you can eat and drink Yakiniku session with members of SRK Japan. To my right is Reno and to my left is SBO Blazblue player, HeartNana.


And THE star of SBO 2009 (almost everyone who was at SBO agrees that his matches were THE most epic of all), Vega Grandmaster Makoto. His team won the last-chance qualifiers, which featured Grandmasters such as Ac Revenger and Poongko. After that, he single-handedly OWNED Ojisan Boy and Tokido. With Vega. Needless to say, he makes you question the validity of all those tier lists...

Alright, so enough player-pics for now. Here's some other random-interesting stuff I managed to catch in Japan.


The famous Hey! arcade in Akihabara. Known as the mecca for shoot-em-up (Schmup) games, the array of games there were certainly a sight to behold. From Radiant Silvergun to Dodonpachi, you'll be sure to find almost every "airplane shooter" game ever made at Hey!


Case in point: a random man during a random lunch-break comes into Hey! and finishes Ikaruga with one credit. Controlling TWO planes.


They say the Japanese love their Nintendo DS's. Here's proof.


The sun sets on Akihabara,and that's when all the buildings light up and you realize that you're REALLY in Japan!

Ok, that's all for now. Stay tuned for more pictures of the Shiozawa Cup, SBO and more top players! Remember, next Saturday, 12th Sept: our very own the Beginner's and Team tournaments so let's get hype!

(As always, you can discuss this post on Round1.sg, at this thread.)

Tournaments are back!

That's right! Mark Sept 12th (Saturday) on your calendars because there will be not one, but TWO SF4 tournaments: A beginner's tournament (not even 'intermediate' players allowed this time) and yet another team tournament!

While the last time we had 2 tournaments in the same day, things were pretty packed because we had to fit everything in on a Friday night. This time, however, we have the whole Saturday so things should go ahead more smoothly. Stay tuned for more details and the format for the team tournament!

Improving our scene

While I'm still formulating my summary post of my trip to Japan, I've come across 2 posts from 2 different sources that already explain some of the things I was planning to put in my own post. Both of these guys are very, very good in their respective main-games (which aren't Street Fighter 4 btw) so there is definitely some credibility here. Not to mention, these 2 observations exactly match mine when I was in Tokyo.

First off, here is a summary of a Japan Q&A thread created by top US player, Sabin. I met him in Tokyo and he came across as a really nice and sociable guy. Here is the full summary.

What's interesting are these 2 portions. Just substitute U.S. for Singapore and bingo.

"Q: How can players in the U.S. improve when they only really play each other at tournaments?
Sabin: U.S. players don't share information. Japanese players talk about why said player lost and how they can lose, that's the main difference."

and

Q: Do players in the Japanese scene help each other out more?
Sabin: Japanese players give each other advice, if I remember correctly, and spread information freely. New strategies get dissected really quickly whereas we save that stuff for nationals — since there is money on the line. I guess because there is no money, no incentive to save information besides glory.

I'm not saying that we DON'T share information at all. In fact, my impression is that we share information more freely than the U.S. community. However, both Singapore and the U.S. pale in comparison to Japan when it comes to how freely they share information (strategies, combos, set-ups etc) amongst the entire community. I'll give specific examples in my next post, but this stands true. We can have secrets that will get us to the top of the Singapore food pile, but that in itself will prevent us from being truly competitive with the Japanese.

Next up, is a post on our very own Round1 forums by top Guilty Gear player, Axel. You can read the whole post (and discuss) here.

Other than also talking about the importance of information sharing, Axel also talks about our attitudes towards casual play and execution:

I believe all Ryu players here have watched matches of Daigo vs Nuki and Nemo, and his combo in that situation will be f.HP, c.MP, c.MP, c.MK, Tatsu. I came from Iluma before dropping by Bugis, and some random Ryu actually pulled that off on me. Maybe Bugis players prefer to stick to simple combos which deal guaranteed damage, but if people don't want to be more adventurous when playing casuals, in tournament when an extra c.MP damage determines a win or loss, it will definitely come back to haunt you.

So true. In fact, I was just talking about these very topics with some of the guys yesterday. In Japan, during casuals, you see top players always trying out the most optimal combos and set-ups in a match. Stuff like safe jump-ins. Akuma's HK>LP loop. Ryu's low strongx2, sweep. Abel's ex-COD armor kara-cancel into ultra. The Grandmasters were actually pulling off these moves in many matches, knowing that messing up could mean them losing the round against some scrub. They wouldn't always pull off those advanced combos and set-ups 100% of the time, and when they would miss a link that would usually mean eating a big combo in return. Against an opponent whose skill level is much lower than theirs. And their reaction? No. Big. Deal. Most of the top players in Japan don't care about maintaining a win streak, or if they lose to a scrub. Casuals are all about training your hands and your mind to pull off the game's most optimal (and usually, harder) combos and set-ups under pressure.

I believe both Sabin and Axel are spot-on, and we absolutely need to follow their points if we are to think of being competitive with Japan in the near future without spending more time with the game.

Edit: The RSS took a while to update but as always, you can discuss this article here.

Godsgarden, meetings with top players

Godsgarden was a truly amazing night, probably the most exciting gaming experience ever. The level of play was truly great and the atmosphere at the place was awesome as well. It was held at this place called Loft A, which is usually a bar, but on the night they installed about 19 PS3s with Joysticks.

Me and Rchan had ALOT of problems finding the place, and once we did it seemed like there was a 'challenge Mago' segment underway. With no warmup games whatsoever and tired from finding the place, me and Rchan decided to challenge him anyways. Little did I know that our matches were on the live worldwide stream, and judging by some of the comments on various forums, we didnt make a very good impression. Oh well, lesson learnt. Never play on a livestream if youre not ready.

During the event I managed to meet lots of people, both from Japan and the US. I met Kuni, a Japanese player and who also translated for Daigo when he was at Evolution 2009. Heres a video with him.



I also managed to talk abit to Uryo, TKD and Tokido. All were very nice people. Tokido, a top, top Akuma player, turned out to be a really nice guy with above average English skills for a Japanese. Guess these Todai dudes really are smart! TKD seemed like the kinda guy who'se aloof and enjoys a good laugh. At first, I didnt know it was TKD when I sat down next to him to play him. But once I saw some of his block strings, I immediately asked him if he was TKD and it turned out that I was right! Uryo is also very very nice and probably has the best manners of anyone Ive met here so far.

I also managed to meet a whole bunch of American players: Haunts (who runs www.iplaywinner.com], Magus1234, Marn,"Face", Yosuke, Alex from Sweden, Kim1234 and Fubarduck, who runs ArcadeUFO in Texas. I also ran into a good friend of mine from Korea, D.B.Koopa, who is Koreas best Third Strike player. Turns out, hes staying at SBO Japan Qualifier, Ichi's house. Me and Rchan then had dinner with him and his SBO partner, probably the best Blanka in the world right now, Mizoteru. It was really funny seeing Rchan ask Mizoteru what character he played. I was like "I guess he plays a decent Blanka" in my head lol. Mizoteru seemed quite surprised I knew who he was, sying that hes probably the "20-something" most famous player in Japan. Blanka players will disagree, having watched many of his videos online.

Anyways, there was a tournament held to determine 4 extra players that would be part of the Godsgarden event proper. I was put into a very tough group featuring Bon Chan, Gashuku and a top Ryu player who I see around Daigo often. I ended up losing to Bon Chan AND Gashuku on the big screen so more internet humiliation for me lol. Rchan, on the other hand, repped Singapore much better with a convincing win against an SBO American Qualifier, Fubarduck. He also took a round off Itabashi Zangief and got him down to half life in the last round, and that after missing an ultra after Balrogs headbutt. Go Rchan!!

Both of us didnt make it out of the pools, with Itazan progressing from Rchans pool and Gashukuo progressing from mine after beating Bon Chan. The rest, as they say, is history with some of the greatest SF4 matches ever seen played in front of my eyes. In case you missed the live stream, here is the recorded version.



Mago eventually won the tournament, narrowly beating a very, very impressive Viper by Uryo. Apparently, hes by far the best Viper in Japan now, way ahead of other famous Viper players like Dashio.

Anyways, considering this is Monday night and Godsgarden was on Friday, this post is pretty late. In between then and now, I managed to hit up one of Japan's top clubs, a House Nation party at Camelot in Shibuya, with Rchan. Im not much of a clubbing person so the experience was alright for me. On Sunday I went to Jesus Lifehouse Church. As some of you may know, there are very, very few Christians (about 1%) in Japan, so it was a pleasant surprise to be able to see that the sevice was quite packed, filled with enthusiastic young people on fire for Jesus. Not to mention Japanese Christian girls (I like girls who dress conservatively for some strange reason) who speak perfect English are HOT, lol.

Today, me and Rchan hit up Big Box again. Today was the craziest day at Big Box, with more famous players around. I finally got to see TKD play in casuals, and tell you something, watching him play casuals and in tournaments are two different things, considering Fuerte CAN showboat when not much is at stake. Some of his blockstrings were crazy and I hope to share as much about the character as I can when I get back. Ok, lets see who was there today.
Shiro, Daigo, Iyo, Fuudo, Itazan, TKD, Mago, Akimo, Nemo, Beru-Beru, Ojisanboy, Mach(I think), Dashio and Mizoteru. Mizoteru in particular, had the longest win-streak of the night! Go Blanka players! And against the likes of Daigo etc too. There was also a Master-Ranked Claw player who was very, very impressive. I lost 2 games to him. =(

However, I manged to win a game against both Iyo and Fuudo today. Needless to say I couldnt win everyone else, but hey, I dont get a feeling that all these players are a level too far above me, or GDLK as some people would put it. I got that feeling when I played Third Strike here 2 years ago, but many people have been saying that in Street Fighter 4, the level between Japan and the rest of the world isnt THAT big. We Singaporeans only need to clean up some aspects of our game in order for us to be ultra-competitive against the top players from Japan. In fact. if you stuck our top 5 players here in Japan for a month, Im very sure they will be able to compete at a Grandmaster level by then. I guess one of the biggest take-aways Ive gotten so far from this trip is the confirmation of how human all these players are. Watching their videos, you get the impression that they either have special reactions or have amazing IQ's or something, but they dont. As Itabashi Zangief also said in an interview here, they just have a better community, with more players and better information sharing. They also treat each game session very importantly, always trying to find the best setups and the optimum damage potentials for their characters in all situations. They also choose a character and they stick with it, through thick and thin, not paying attention to the tier lists at all. (after all, we pay attention to the tier lists made by top players but we sometimes forget that that these top players are just humans beings and their judgements are purely subjective!) Its because of Akimo that Mago rates Honda B tier now. Its because of players like Itabashi Zangeif that somehow keep Zangief at Tier A, despite times when you may think some matchups are impossible.

The Japanese play the game to maximize their skills as a player and maximize the potential of their character at all times. Its not really about winning. If you maximize the potential of the player and the character, winning will come naturally by itself. Ive taken this philosophy to heart in my trip here. Of course, my goal is to Qualify for SBO this Thursday, but thats not as important as becoming the best Fuerte player I can possible become.

The best examples are Iyo and Shiro, really. I can tell that both these guys come to the arcade after a long day's work, with a slightly tired look in their eyes, dressed in business suits. They also arent at the arcades everydayday. In fact, many top Japanese players only hit the arcade once a week. Yet, somehow they are playing their characters at an amazing level.This is good news. Because that means that its not a matter of how much time you put in the game, which is a hard variable to change. We go to work, we study. Those things cannot be sacrificed for a game like SF4. So if its not time, then we're talking about variables that CAN be changed easily. Well, over the next few weeks Ill be talking about these variables in detail but I hope everyone has a rough idea of what Im talking about.

So yea, I hope this is an encouragement to all Singaporean players. We have the smarts and the signs of a top community already. We just need to take the extra step to clean our game up and push our characters to their limits. Mago couldnt even get a win at Big Box today!

In conclusion, yesterday, I had 2 games with Mizoteru's SBO partner, Ichi, who plays Sagat. In the first game, i beat him 3-0. In the second, I lost 3-1. After losing, I went over to say "Good game" to him and he looked completely shocked! "THAT was you??" He asked. I nodded my head, and then he said "I never knew a foreigner could play at this level." I smiled at him and thanked him, such praise coming from a top Japanese player. And then I thought "Man, I would love to see the look on his face when he plays Peihoon!"

you can discuss this post on Round1.sg in this thread

Arcade happenings,mobile blogging issues.

First off, as you can see by the weird looking pictures ｂｅｌｏｗ, my genius plan to upload photos using my phone(so I didnt have to bring my laptop) isnt working. hopefully I can find a way to get photos out of my camera and upload them while Im here.Otherwise I guess Ill just have to upload everything in one shot whenI get back.

Ok, down to business. Me and Rchan arrived at Big Box arcade, the prime SF4 arcade in Tokｙｏ　(and by extension, the world), at around 7pm. We were both hyped up all the way, even on the flight. Once we got there, guess who was the first person we saw there? Yup, none other than Daigo Umehara himself. Also present then was Nuki, probably the best Chun in the world.

So, me and Rchan got warmed up with some ｇａｍｅｓ on another set of machines, away from UmeNuki(thats the nickname for Daigo and Nuki, and they also happen to be SBO partners). I had no idea what to expect: after facing off against some of the best from Korea,Australia and Hong Kong and holding my own so far, I was about to get games in against the best players in the world.

I managed to get 7 wins off the bat against some ａｖｅｒａｇｅ ｐｌａｙｅｒｓ, which helped ease　my nerves a little. Once I got Ｋｉｃｋｅｄ off the machine by a rank A Akuma (I think), I proceeded to challenge the man himself. Now for　some strange　reason, I wasnt as nervous as I expected I would be. Perhaps its because I knew I had absolutely nothing to lose by playing him. no pride, no insecurities, whatever. I finally got to play Daigo after years of hearing his name and watching his videos.

Needless to say, he didnt dissapoint. Clearly, this guy tries to get in your head from the get go, and ｒｅａｄｓ and adapts to you faster than anyone Ive ever played with. It was incredibly fun to play with him . We played a total of four games. Final score: Daigo 3, Yagami 1.

And yes, it felt REALLY good beating him at least once. =p

Later in the night, Itabashi Zangief showed up. He was really nice and gave us each a brand spanking new SF4 id card to use in Japan! After ｔｈａｔ, more ｔｏｐ players streamed into Big Box. Bon-Chan, Grandmaster Sagat. Uryo, THE BEST Viper in the world. Kindevu, best Rufus. I managed to get one or two games in with everyone except for Kindevu. Ｌｏｓｔ to all of the above mentioned.Against Nuki is was really close tho. But against Bon-Chans Sagat...man..I lost REAL badly to Bon-Chan.Really, should I disclose the ｉｎｓａｎｅ shit he was doing with Sagat,I fear for us all back in Singapore haha. Jokes aside, Ill do a proper writup on what exactly　these players were doing that we dont when I get back.

Ok, its getting late. Tomorrow, its Godsgarden!!

Tokee yo!

Me and my partner in crime for the next few days, Rchan (above) have arrived in Tokyo safetly.



Thankfully, the trip to Tokyo was uneventful. Just really crappy airline food from Northwest airlines! I guess the old saying is true: you get what you pay for.

We hit up Big Box arcade, Tokyos SF4 hub, once we settled down.

To be continued..

First up: Godsgarden hosted by KSK and Itabashi Zangeif

I'll be heading off to Tokyo now for some international Street Fighter 4 action with the world's top players! I'll be joining three tournaments, the first one will be this Friday. The entire event will be streamed on http://godsgarden.jp/ from 3pm to 6am (yes, 6am!!). Daigo Umehara will be there and hopefully I'll get some games with him in, wish me luck!

Off to Tokyo, lots of updates to come!

I'll be heading off to Tokyo for lots of Street Fighter, shopping, food...and did I mention Street Fighter? There will be three big events going down during the 10 days or so that Ill be there: Godsgarden this Friday, featuring a tournament with top japanese players voted in like Daigo, Tetsu, Mago and Tokido. Then theres a 5v5 tournament open to foreigners going down next Friday, before SBO. Other than the usual japanese suspects, you can expect the likes of Justin Wong and Alex Valle to be there as well. Im currently trying to get team Singapore in, we just need 1 more player. And finally, theres the biggest fish of them all, Super Battle Opera, the worlds premier fighting game tournament! Other than catching the highest level of play, we can also expect details on the next version of Street Fighter 4 to be announced.

Exciting times. Ill be updating this blog daily (I hope) via my mobile, so do keep checking back for updates on my escapades with Rchan, Ganguro and Cody there.

Oh, and this Wednesday night at Bugis will be my "farewell" session. Im hoping to get as many games in with everyone as possible to keep me as sharp as possible for this Friday @ godsgarden. Julius and Cody, if you're reading this, you guys should be there also to get yourslves tuned up for Japan. We have two strong guests from Hong Kong and Japan there tomorrow as well so that should be very interesting.

Beginner-Intermediate Tournament and FFA 2v2 this Friday!!!

That's right folks, regular casual tournament action will resume this Friday, 24th of July with not only a 2v2 tournament, but Round1.sg's very first Beginner-Intermediate Tournament! Details below.

Beginner-Intermediate Tournament

Format: 1v1 Double Elimination
Restrictions: Player's with 4 seed points and more (refer to list below)
Prize: Tokens from the pot+TKA Virtualand contribution (details TBC)
Entry fee: $2, pay for your own games.
Changing of character during tournament is NOT allowed
Time: 7pm start. Registration opens at 6:30pm
Player cap: 32 Entrants. First come, first served. Alternatively, you may pre-register by replying to this thread.
Players who join this tournament may also join the 2v2 Casual Tournament below if they wish.

2v2 Casual Tournament
Format: 2v2 Double Elimination
Restrictions: No 2 players with 4 seed points or more may team with each other. (refer to list below)
Prize: Tokens from the pot+TKA Virtualand contribution (details TBC)
Entry fee: $2, pay for your own games.
Changing of character during tournament is NOT allowed
Time: Starts right after the beginner-intermediate tournament. Estimated at 9pm. Registration opens also at 6:30
Player cap: 16 teams. First come, first served. Alternatively, you may pre-register by replying to this thread.


2v2 notes:
- Each team will look to beat the other team in the current round by eliminating both of their players. Lets say team 1 has players A and B, and team 2 has players C and D. A fights C first and beats him. Then if A beats D, team 1 wins that round. If A loses, then its the final match between B and D to determine which team wins the round.
- Team order may be changed after/before every round.

Players with 4 seed points or more

Alan
Leslie
Ganguro
Pei Hoon
Weijie
Yagami
Raven
Simon
Dixon
Tetra
Elcie
RealDeal
Shogoku
Amos
Gackt
Jan
LSB (Wilson Chin)
Lurker
Rchan
SBK
Xian

Alright! If you were hesitant to join our tournaments before because you felt that your chances of getting anywhere were slim because of all the 'pros' joining, the Beginners-Intermediate tournament is your chance to shine! See you Friday. =)

K.O.'ed and off to Sydney

Man, what a weekend. K.O.: Simply awesome. There are so many I would like to thank for making this event possible, but that will have to wait till I get back because my flight is in 2 hours.

I'll be in Sydney for 1 week for the Hillsong Conference and I'm also checking out the Sydney Street Fighter scene. I'm looking forward to that and to updating everyone on insights from K.O. and from Sydney.

Peace.

K.O. Is This Weekend: What you need to know

Here's the schedule and extra details everyone needs to know

Venue: One of the Suntec City Convention Hall 404 (level 4). Link

Friday 6pm: Represent participants (59 total) casual matches against Poongko (Kor), Itabashi Zangief (Jap) and Laugh (Kor).

Saturday 1pm: 3-Nation exhibition match feat our foreign guests and Peihoon. (You can show your support for him here) Format: Best of 3 games

Followed by: K.O. Finals proper feat 13 of the best Singapore has to offer plus our 3 foreign guests. Format: Double Elim, final 4 best of 3 games.

Our foreign guests will be arriving tomorrow. If you want to catch a sneak preview of their game, do head down to Bugis Junction Virtualand this Wednesday night! They will all be there to get a feel for our awesome arcade scene. =)

Oh, and in case you haven't been keeping up with the K.O. results on www.round1.sg, you can just head over to this thread for the full list of qualifiers.

To end off probably my last post before K.O., let me give everyone an idea of what kind of level of play we'll be seeing this weekend. One of the K.O. qualifiers is Itabashi Zangief from Japan. JUUUUST in case you haven't heard of him, well, here's a video of him beasting some Ryu player in Japan. I dunno who the Ryu player is, but his name is Daigo Umehara. Dunno, name seems kinda familiar, hmmm..

Get your Round1.sg T-shirts now!

That's right, the first Round1.sg T-shirt designs are up! This is a great opportunity for all of us to show our solidarity as a kick-ass fighting game community, and not to mention I think the design is really kickass as well! (Thanks Farp for the design!)

They will be available in both Black and Red as you can see above. For more information on the shirts (sizes etc) and how to order, click here.

As you can see, I'll be closing orders soon so that we can get our shirts in time for the K.O. finals at Suntec City. So, what are you waiting for? Order yours now!! (God, that was cheesy. =p)

Japan and Korea K.O. Qualifier updates

Laugh(right) with Round1.sg web mastah Farp (left), has just won the Korea K.O. Qualifier leg and will be representing Korea along with our special guest Poongko just July 4th at the K.O. finals at Suntec! Laugh is a good friend of ours and was here recently for our Clash of The Titans tournament last March. Although the team of me and Laugh only managed to clinch 3rd place at the tournament, it was clear then that Laugh carried the team and that he introduced Singapore to the most technical and methodical Ryu to date.

As for the Japan leg, it's happening this Saturday! If you happen to be or speak Japanese, or have Japanese friends who are into gaming, do help spread the word with regards to the qualifiers in Tokyo. More details on that here, in Japanese.
http://d.hatena.ne.jp/Y_Matsui/20090601/1243819580

K.O. Updates

Sam "Aheda" has posted a thread on Round1 with updates on K.O.
http://forums.round1.sg/index.php?topic=367.0

In short, 3 people qualified for the K.O. finals last Saturday. There are
1st: Leslie (Sagat)
2nd: Yagami (Me with El Fuerte)
3rd: Simon (Ryu)

As mentioned in the thread above, videos can be found here. Here's the finals, which I must admit was really tense for me. GG Leslie!

Updates from the past week: Represent+Player interviews

First off, pics and videos from Represent!!(Yo) are in. Here are a few.


Group pick at the end with most of the Round1.sg members. Yes, as many of you know by now I wore an afro on the day...


And the top 3 of the night, from left:
3rd- Weijie (Dhalsim)
1st- Peihoon (Sagat), your Singapore representative vs Korea and Japan @ K.O., TGX'09
2nd- Alan (Akuma)


Just had to put this in. ;p


MOSH PIT!!

More photos can be found here(thanks Sam) and here(Thanks Rafee).

Videos of the event can be found in this thread, which will be updated once more videos come in. In the meantime here are the best matches, both featuring Alan no less.

Best comeback of the night


Grand Finals



As always, Gamesync has a report on the event here.

Also last week, our very own Singapore Representative Tan "Peihoon" Jia Chun was interviewed by Rapture Gaming on their website. Its good to see our players getting recognized in the larger competitive e-gaming sphere. Thanks Kuan Hoe "Alkaiser" for the interview.

That's all for now. Stay tuned for news on the first K.O. qualifiers.

Attention Ps3 players

That's right, get a chance to play Poongko (Efzzang) and this Taiwan dude in the next few days on the PSN. Thanks to Gameaxis for the heads up.

Please join the Bugis K.O. Qualifiers

I really don't know how to say this without being blunt, but it must be done. To my knowledge to date (Wednesday), only 12 people have signed up for the K.O. Bugis qualifiers. That's right, only 12. It seems that many people got the impression that all the 'pros' have registered at Bugis, so they've registered for the more obscure locations at later dates. Let me give you the lowdown on the situation now, and why these people might regret not joining the first qualifier.

- Bugis has the LEAST number of registrants compared to the other locations. I'm sure I don't have to say why, but I'll just say it anyways: Everyone was trying to avoid each other at Bugis and now they've ended up together anyways at the other locations. I've seen the list, and Kallang looks like the toughest location to qualify in. Makes sense doesn't it? The most 'obscure' location has now become the hardest to qualify in. I would rather not elaborate, but I'm sure most of you get the picture by now.

- Nevertheless, there are a good number of 'pros' that have signed up for Bugis, and not all will hit top 3. I've spoken to many of them, and it is certain that they if they don't get top 3, they will sign up to compete again at the other locations. And they'll continue to do so until they can't qualify at the last qualifier (I don't know if this was mentioned elsewhere, but registrants for previous qualifiers get priority registration for later dates). With Peihoon now out of the picture and with a large pool of players in the next tier below him, I'd say chances to qualify are equal across all locations.

- With chances being equal across all locations, why not register for the FIRST location? K.O. qualifiers aren't about location, they are about timing. The last qualifier will definitely have the most players, with the spillover from previous tournaments. Therefore, it makes the most sense to register for Bugis. That way, if you make it there, you can immediately relax and spend more time preparing for the finals. If you don't, at least you have 3 more chances to qualify during later dates. What if you registered for Kallang and came in 4th? That's right, your last chance would now be at Clementi with everyone else who didn't make it for the past 3 tournaments vying for those final 3 slots.

At the end of the day, let's support the local scene and make the first qualifiers as lively as possible. Although it won't help your chances of qualifying, it might inspire others who haven't registered to register for later dates. I hope I haven't come off as too 'strong handed' in this approach to get people to register for Bugis, but I hope that after reading the points above you'll also realize how hilarious this whole situation is. C'mon, its pretty funny right? Everyone was trying to avoid everyone and wound up at the same place at the end of the day. So yea, lesson learnt. =p

So if you haven't registered, please register for the Bugis leg. If you have already registered and put in a location other than Bugis, it's not too late. You can email them at tournament@tkaworld.com to indicate that you're switching locations.

- I just thought of this: people might read this and think "Now everyone's going to switch to Bugis so I better stay put here in AMK/Kallang/Clementi". LOL. Not again! Enough of this cat n mouse game. K.O. only comes around once a year, and after K.O. there will be NO MORE major tournaments till next May. Ok, rant over, see you guys on Saturday. =D

Represent!!(Yo) Report: Part1

We saw some of THE best Singapore SF4 matches to date on Saturday, and there were certainly many great in-game moments which I certainly wasn't expecting. Expect videos to be uploaded in batches. Personally, I can't wait to see the comments on Alan's amazing Akuma comeback.

However, arguably the best moment of Represent didn't come from the game. Before the finals between Alan and Peihoon, I interviewed the both of them. Peihoon's response shall never be forgotten, and we'll just have to wait till K.O. to see if it really is true.



And yes, Peihoon won the match and is your Singapore Street Fighter 4 representative. After his pre-match comments, I believe we can all agree that it was inevitable.

Stay tuned for the gameplay videos.

Poongko is coming to town

(Korean champion Poongko, center, with SF4 lead producer Yoshinori Ono)

That's right folks, Poongko is confirmed as the first of our 3 special guests for the K.O. finals and the 3-nation exhibition match! Poongko is the Korea national champion and represented Korea in the famous 4-man world tournament in San Francisco a while back against Daigo Umehara, Iyo and Justin Wong. Although he wound up losing, he definitely put on a good show and gave those SF4 superstars a good run for their money. Also, it was reported that he cleaned up shop against the rest of the US including the likes of Gootecks. Poongko's PSN nick is efzzang and he was the top ranked player in terms of BP for at least a month when SF4 was released on console.

Recently, Laugh (Korean 3rd place) also came to Singapore and gave most of us a taste of how good Korean play is, so I'm excited to be able to play Poongko. (Again for me. I played him in Korea and it was apparent back then that he was levels above me, at least. I do hope it's different this time around tho!)

In case some of you didn't catch the World Tournament feat. Poongko, here are the videos.

Remember, by signing up for Represent!!(Yo) for this Saturday, you get a free pass to play best of 5 against.Poongko on the 3rd of July at Virtualand Bugis. Poongko plays every character in SF4 VERY well, (here is proof) so I'm sure if you want to see how a certain character can be played to a high level, you can request it on the night.

I am extremely proud to announce: Represent!!(Yo) and K.O., presented by the all new www.round1.sg and TKA!

(click on the image for the full size)

Presented by me and the all new (and still under construction)...



That's right Singapore SF4 playaz, this is your chance to make your country proud! Our contacts over in Korea and Japan will be holding qualifying tournaments to determine who will represent their country here in Singapore for K.O., and so we embark on a quest to find THE best player in Singapore to represent us as well in a 3-way exhibition rumble going down on the same day! Here's what's up for grabs on the night.

1st place:
Will represent Singapore on July 4 against the best from Japan and Korea. Will also receive automatic qualification to the K.O. finals on the same day.

2nd and 3rd place:
Limited edition SF4 premiums + priority seeding for K.O. qualifiers.

What's more, ALL participants will be given a ticket to play a best of 5 game against one of our guests from Korea and Japan!!!

This is our first tournament in which the entree fees will proceed to Round1.sg to help cover the costs of bringing the foreigners into Singapore. On top of that, we are also looking to offset the costs we've incurred running tournaments and the website so far, and therefore your support for this event will be much appreciated as this will help us bring more to the table with regards to the Street Fighter 4 scene in Singapore. A big 'Thank You!' in advance to all participants. So what are you waiting for? Click here for tournament rules and to register now!

Round1.sg is a project that me and some friends have been working on for the past few months. The main site will eventually launch on the same day as Represent! that will feature links to community blogs and websites of all the major fighting game franchises, including Tekken 6:BR, Blazblue, Arcana Heart 2 and many more! You are welcome to join and post on the forums that have been functional for a while now, but please note that even the forums are in beta-stage right now and we will be continuing our maintenance (content-wise) and upkeep as we gather up speed towards the official launch.


(click on the poster for details)

K.O. is organized by TKA Virtualand and will be the BIGGEST and most prestigious Street Fighter 4 tournament of the year, with our Korean and Japanese guests also participating during the finals. Do support TKA's efforts to bring SF4 in Singapore to another level and register for the BUGIS qualifier now. I'm encouraging everyone to sign up for the Bugis qualifier (6th June) first in order to generate hype that hopefully will encourage more people to join at the other venues. Don't worry about not getting a spot at a later qualifier should you not get top 3 at Bugis though. The higher the placing you have at Bugis, the more priority TKA will give you in terms of seeding and registration for the other qualifiers. Therefore, signing up for for the qualifiers in chronological (time) order as they happen will offer you the best chance of getting a spot amongst the top 16 @ the K.O. finals.

Remember, if response for this is good, this will allow TKA to host bigger things in the future and will also help to generate interest in the game. Now is the time to stand up and be counted! Potential things on the horizon are SBO/Evolution spots for Singaporeans so let's all work towards that. These qualifiers and Represent!!(Yo)leading up to the K.O. finals will be the biggest SF4 events of the year, so miss these and you'll have to wait next year for events of these scales to happen again.

Anyways, I'll be hosting Represent!, the K.O. qualifiers AND the events at TGX, so see ya'all there. =D

- Special thanks to Tetra and Cody for their help on the Japan side; and to Ryan "Laugh" Ahn for the Korean side! Major credit to Farp "Shen Yu" for his on-going work on the Round1 website!

News: Zangief can lariat into ultra!

This was too good to not share. =) Saw this on the www.shoryuken.com forums, posted by PasteyMF.

Oh and here's a reminder to everyone that there's no tourney today because we're getting ready for the big one at the end of the month. Details to follow...

What's with the lack of updates?!

Wah lau eh! Is what some of you may be thinking of right now with regards to this blog... What's with the lack of updates on this site?! Why hasn't he even uploaded the RESULTS of his own tournament at Plaza Singapura when other websites like Gamesync [our friends <3] have?! Not to mention videos of the tournament. Heck, you've probably heard of the upcoming K.O. tournament from someone else before I'm posting details here...

Well folks, me and my team has been working on some super-duper secret awesome project the past few days that I'm sure will please all Street Fighter 4 fans, so apologies for the lack of updates. Look out for a BIG announcement that you won't expect in the next few days! In the meantime I guess I'll leave you guys with this video of me and Aheda on Singapore's very own Gameaxis GAX Point show where we debate the merits of getting an arcade stick! Thanks to the host and editor, Jonathan Leo, for having us! Do check out his site for regional gaming news and updates.

Mayday 1v1 Madness: Plaza Singaporura, here we come!!!

I've been wanting to hold a tournament at Plaza Singapura for the longest time and finally, we got the green light to do so! Not to mention, it's on a public holiday, Labor Day. My guess is that people won't be tired from work when they go down this time around, which I hope means a higher level of play.

The format will be 1v1 just like last week's tournament. I'm hoping to have double elimination as the format if we get a number close to 32. If we get more than 32, however, I'll definitely not want to limit registration and I'll look into making it group round-robin so everyone can join. So don't worry about having no space left to join, just come on down and I'll make sure there's space for everyone to participate. =)

Time, rules and prize money are the same as last Friday's tournament. Details here.

So I'll see everyone at 7:30pm, TKA Virtualand/StarFactory. In case you don't know where that is, it's on the highest level next to Golden Village Cinema. =)

Bishan Tournament results + Finals Videos

Your top 3 for Bishan's 1v1 tournament!
From left:
3rd: Rchan with Balrog
1st: Leslie with Sagat
2nd: Ganguro with Sagat

Congratulations to the winners and a big THANK YOU to all who made it down. Grats to tournament newcomer Clinton Who? for getting 4th! We had a perfect number of participants for double elimination (32), and I everyone was really sporty: cheering when great moves were pulled off and when comebacks were made. It was good to see lots of new faces (I really would have liked to chat with all of you but as always, I'm just really busy running the show).I really liked the Bishan Virtualand setting as well. It's a really nice arcade with direct access to the food court, which has good beef noodles haha.

So, here are the videos of the Losers Semis to the Finals. Enjoy.

SF4 World Tournament Results and Reactions

(Justin Wong, center, the US champ. Thanks to www.eventhubs.com and www.gootecks.com for the pictures and results. Thanks to Ganguro for giving me the heads up on the results!)

1st - Daigo, Japan (Ryu,)
2nd - Justin Wong, USA (Rufus)
3rd - Iyo, Japan (Dhalsim)
4th - Poongko, Korea (Ryu)

1st match - Iyo beats Poongko 4-2
2nd match - Daigo beats Poongko 4-1
3rd match - Justin Wong beats Poongko 4-3
4th match - Daigo beats Iyo 4-3
5th match - Justin Wong beats Iyo 4-2
6th match - Daigo beats Justin 4-0

Dang, I believe this is as a BIG wake-up call to those outside of Japan and America. For a while many of us (myself included) were saying that the level of the US isn't up there. We watched some videos and we made judgments based on that, but today's result showed us that the US is still a force to be reckoned with. Perhaps Rufus v Dhalsim is a really bad matchup for Dhalsim, but mad props nonetheless to Justin Wong for beating the reigning Japan champ and Poonko (The Korean champ, whom I've played before).

Before I get to Poonko, let me draw your attention to this post on gootecks.com.

http://gootecks.com/travel/gamestop-street-fighter-4-national-finals-san-francisco-trip-day-1/

In particular, this line:
"we headed to Keystone II, which is a secret arcade at Albert’s house (yes, it’s in his backyard) where all the NorCal pros train on Friday nights."

This, to me, was THE reminding factor as to why you can't ever rule US out. As long as they have a collective of pros that get together to TRAIN, they will always be competitive. Train. NOT just getting together, having some games, playing to win and feeling good about beating people that you play with every week anyways. Instead, training means trying out new things in games against top players. It also means 'debriefing' after every game to discuss how the matchup went in an intelligent manner. What moves were good? What moves were bad? How did I win/lose? ("Sagat is sooo powerful" isn't an intelligent comment. By the way, I think we can lay the whole "Sagat is cheap" notion to rest now. He's still the best character in the game, but there was no Sagat in the world tournament. Only the Japan finals had a Sagat, the US and Korea finals did not.) Now, I don't know if this is exactly what the 'Norcal Pros' actually do, but I've trained with top players before (Laugh, who was part of the Cali scene included) and this is how we did things.

Another thing that struck me is that these 'Norcal pros' delibarately get together on a regular schedule to train. I think if we're going to take ourselves seriously in this game, we schedule training sessions on a regular basis. Maybe even just once a month, but a regular schedule means we're being professional about this, instead of randomly popping up at the arcades or on PSN/XBL. It has a sense of deliberateness about it which brings about a more serious attitude during the sessions themselves, which in the end ups the level of training. So, no matter what level you are in SF4, I encourage you to get together with people around your skill level to train regularly. (at least once a month. If you're time constrained, then cut down on your 'random casual' game time.)

Now, on to Poonko. While he came in 4th, i think its enlightening to know that we are within touching distance of his level. Personally, I feel that Peihoon would go even with him should they fight. And while I still feel that Peihoon is Singapore's best player, he hasn't reached that 'completely dominating' level relative to the rest of us yet, which means that with a little bit more serious training we could all compete on an international level.

So at the end of this long-winded post, I guess I'm just trying to encourage everyone to get some serious training sessions up, and to share tactics and teach other people how to beat YOUR own character. If people are falling for stuff over and over again, you should tell them how to get out of it because chances are, top players from other countries already know how to. As shown in the world tournament, just because Poonko looks good in the videos tearing it up against the people around him doesn't mean that he's going to do the same against the rest of the world. Which mean that people only look as good as they competition allows them to. Oh, and lastly, more props to US for having a Rufus v Honda matchup. I've read some of Mike Ross' (the Honda player) comments about playing a supposed 'lower-tier' character and its encouraging to know that despite the difficulties, he made it work.

(This is by no means a diss on Poonko. I went 5-1 or something down against him when we fought. Flashy combos aside, he's a very, very good player that will OBLITERATE 99% of the world Street Fighter population)

Edit: Crap quality vids are up! Oh my God, Poonko put up an incredible fight against Daigo. That was seriously one of the best SF4 matches I've ever seen.

Double Edit: Watched more vids, and seriously, the level of all play is insane. Poonko was messing up alot of his inputs which is very uncharacteristic, and Justin Wong had AWESOME home crowd support. Love it when the crowd puts their hands up evertime Rufus finishes his ultra.