Full Details on this Friday's 2v2

Most of this info is a re-post of details from the last tournament. However, do pay attention to the RULES, FORMAT and FAQ portions which provides details on how this 2v2 will be run.

Time: Tournament starts at 8pm sharp. Registration opens at 7pm. Look for the microphone/laptop booth near the SF4 machines. Come down after work and dinner!

Place: Virtualand, B1 Bugis Junction. (Right on top of Bugis MRT)Website: http://www.tkaworld.com/

Entry Fee and Prizes: $2, pay for your own games. All entry fees will be converted into TKA Virtualand tokens that will make up the 'pot'. This must be done because prizes cannot be in cash, as doing such would violate the anti-gambling laws of the land.

1st Place wins 50% of the total token pot.
2nd Place wins 30% of the total token pot.
3rd Place wins 20% of the total token pot.

TKA has decided to chip in and effectively DOUBLE the pot prize. This means that for every dollar collected from entry fees, TKA will be topping up an additional dollar to that.

*****UPDATED: 2v2 Rules*****
- Each team consists of 2 members, and they can both pick any character they want. So a team can have 2 Ryu's if ever.
- If you've been in the top 4 of the past 2 tournaments so far, you cannot team with someone else who's also been in the top 4. This is to prevent 'super teams' from forming.
- 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.
- Each team must nominate a team captain. The role of the team captain is to notify the tournament judges (recognizable by the tags around their necks. These judges may be entrants of the tournament themselves.)about their choice of which player in their team goes first, each round. This notification is whispered to the judge so as to not give any matchup advantages to the team that picks second.
- Team order may be changed after/before every round.


Other rules
- No characters are banned.
- Each match will be best of 3.
- All players must indicate the character they wish to use upon registration. No switching mid-tournament allowed, Japanese style.
- No forms of physical and/or verbal intimidation outside of the game shall be used whatsoever. This is a friendly tournament people.
- Due to legal issues, winners may NOT sell their tokens for cash within the TKA Virtualand premises.

**UPDATE!!**
Format: Group stage matches. This allows every player to get at least 3-4 games in. Best 2 of each group advance to the knockout stages.

***UPDATED: Frequently asked questions!!***

Q: What's the deal with 2v2 this time around?
A: 1) Because it adds a new dimension to the tournaments so far, and I think it's more fun. =)
2)This balances certain very bad matchups that some characters have against each other. Wile it's the most balanced fighter in YEARS, SF4 is still a very matchup dependent game: some characters are great against some, and really bad against others. Having a 2v2 format allows players to 'balance' their teams by covering their character's bad matchup with their teammate's character selection. For example, C.Viper's worst matchup in the game is E.Honda. The player using C.Viper can cover this up by getting a Guile player as a partner to eliminate this bad matchup.

I hope that this mention of matchups helps newer players to get started on adding the element of matchups in their thinking of game strategy.

Oh, and this year's SBO/Tougeki, the largest arcade gaming tournament in the world, is having a 2v2 format for SF4 as well. I hope that someday, we'll be able to send our top players to Japan for this competition and it would be good to give them some experience in this format.

Q: Why should I join this tournament? Won't all the 'pros' be there?! I won't have a chance of winning!
A: Because of this.

http://www.sirlin.net/ptw-book/advanced-players-guide.html

The above link is a must-read in my opinion.

And also because I hope we'll all have a good time knowing the rest of the people in the Singapore SF4 scene. Let's all have fun playing this game that we all love together!

For those that think they're really good, come down and prove it.

Q: Why are you hosting this tournament? What do you have to gain from it?
A: I don't receive any money whatsoever from this. There are two big reasons why I'm doing this.
1) To get the whole SF4 Singapore community together. Currently, it's pretty fragmented.
2) To increase the level of SF4 play in Singapore. From what I hear, there's a good chance that top Japanese players will be invited to compete at the next TKA SF4 tournament here. The possibility of that, and I want to put Singapore's SF4 scene on the world map with match videos and hopefully see some Singaporeans at international tournaments soon!

With the imminent release of SF4 on the PS3 and XBOX 360, I hope these tournaments give everyone who's planning on playing the game solely at home a great reason to keep coming back to the arcades.

Nothing beats face to face human competition. =)

Remember to check out past tournament and casual videos @ http://www.youtube.com/user/atatashai . Also, if you have trouble finding a partner for this Friday's tournament, please refer to the post immediately below.

If you have any questions you can email me at tien_lang@hotmail.com. See you this Friday!

~Lang

Special thanks to Bernard from TKA Virtualand for giving this event the green light and full support.