Serious training ahead.

Hello my beloved readers :P

anyways, lately, I discovered that I suck :P, well, compared to the real top tier players up there.

While my play style is unique and I have created lots of set ups for my game play. There is still one issue. Missing up inputs!

In the pro world, e.g. the Japanese league. Do you see anyone missing up his combo or whatever move their doing? In these high level games everyone is supposed to have mastered their inputs! You'd never see a Zangief jump with a punch coming out because he meant to do his grab but missed up. You'd never see a Ryu doing a SRK instead of an Ultra after a SRK FADC. Well, you might see, but I do not believe it would go above 5% error.

If you have your style and technique mastered. Imagine now added to that never missing a single combo? As I said above, in the pro league, everyone is expected to have mastered their inputs. The difference on who's gonna win is who knows the match up better. knowing the match up includes fast reaction to moves as well. Also some mix-ups and mind games. But if you know your match up, these two wont be as bothersome.

Now what have I done? I admit I dont spend enough time in training room. In real matches I keep missing some important combos and I eat ultras because of that. My accuracy is around 50% which is absolutely unacceptable. While it is true that my accuracy is around 50% I try to stick to easy combos and go for the mix-ups that viper has. But If I have like maybe even 80% accuracy on her more advanced moves I'd be even more annoying to play against :P.

I started working on my performance yesterday by first creating a table of tasks. These tasks are the moves that are most important to my character "Viper". I tried each task for a number of times and I would check my accuracy with that move. The moves I have most trouble with I would practice them more and repeat them daily for an undecided amount of times.



As we can see from the table, I've created my tasks which are around 16 moves. I gave each a bar for difficulty to pull out out of 5 and the importance of the move for me. Then an "out of" bar which shows how many times I have to do it to check my performance. Then as we can see under the 2nd of June which was yesterday there is the total which shows how many times I have successfully managed to pull out the move out of the limit number. I have 2 different percentages. The first one shows the normal percentage for all tasks, while the 2nd one applies the difficulty into it. because if I perform an easy move with 50% and a very hard move with 10% the normal average should be around 30% but the real average should be somewhere around 15~20% So as seen sadly my viper is around 50% only on success rate. (Advanced technique though).

now in the second table down is the daily repetition table. I haven't really decide what the formula for it should be. I simply used (1-%)*3*Importance*Difficulty+10
the less % I have the more repetitions I will do. 3 is a fixed number that I found reliably convenient, and finally the more difficult and important the move is the more I think I should repeat it. The final +10 is a fixed value in order if I perfected a move, I should still practice it so I wont get rusty :P

I might change the formula depending on how things go. So, now I test my performance everyday and depending on that I get a new table for the number of repetitions for the next day.

Some of the tasks have 1 and 2 in them, these are for the sides I'm on. 1 for being on the left side, 2 is for the right side.

Hmmm, I thought this post would've been a lil longer.. but oh well, I hope my method would help any of you guys if you think your performance is not up top notch. And if any has his/her own method please do share!

Well what am I doing here! time to go to training room!! :D

How to deal with scrubs!

You meet lots of scrubs online that are irritating to play against. So how do you deal with them? Playing against average players to a higher level have different strategies and tactics than those of lower levels, AKA Scrubs.

I am writing this for a friend who had a rough time with scrubs when he tried to play with a new character.

First I will show you what characters scrubs mostly use.
*Ryu, Ken, Blanka, Zangief, Sagat, Akuma*
The ones that they rarely choose.
*Cammy, Guile*
And from the new characters.
*Adon, Juri*

Before discussing character match up against scrubs let me explain what scrubs mostly do....

SHORYUUUUUUUUKEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEN!

Well, we get different types of scrubs, but I will come back to that later, one thing they all have in common, the spam.

Usually scrubs have no patience. They have to use the only moves they know, which most of the time is the shoryuken. Now as I said above, some tactics will not work against scrubs, those tactics are the overheads. overhead attacks will NEVER work on a scrub, overhead usually takes more time than other normals. and since scrubs have no patience whatsoever, you will see an EX-Shoryuken Struck up your... face. Never use an overhead against a scrub.

Mix-up tech throw wont work as well, the same reason as the above, they will spam special up your face. Try your best not to mess up your combo, 1 miss and you will eat a shoryuken. If in doubt, stick to B&B moves.

Since they mash all the time, you can take that to your advantage. After a block string, stop attack and just stay guarding, you will see a shoryuken coming. punish it. Keep doing that, scrubs never learn, if they do, they wont be called scrubs.

A very lovely way to bait scrubs is the back dash. After a special that puts both players almost in the same recovery time, try to backdash, you will see your opponent flying in air with fire on their arms but with no opponents in air with them. put your evil laugh on, and PUNISH.

I would say the worst type of scrubs is the one that knows how to throw, this person will be almost random to you. You won't be able to anticipate their next move. For this type of people, you might wanna practice on Option Selecting. I wrote a previous post about OS if you wanna check it out. Basically if you are in doubt, guard down and press jab + short, if they try to throw, you will tech it. Else if they shoryuken, you will stay down guarding.

Now for the most annoying type of scrubs, is the type that does not know that there is a forward or up direction, they just jump backwards, the whole game they're on air. throwing hadoukens or kunais, land do a projectile, then repeat. This type is hard to hit because of their backward jump, they have some form of defense that you can't approach them, so you have to figure a way to hit them. If you get close enough to them, they will sweep. for me playing viper, I try to seismo their ground as soon as they land, and its working pretty well. If you have more health than them, then just don't bother following them, let them fly in their own world in the end of the TV corner. Taunt or do whatever. Since this type jumps a lot, you can almost anticipate any jump coming in, so you can counter with a jumping fierce or jumping roundhouse depending on your character. Careful though if they have an anti-air they will mash it instead. *Sometimes*.

Moving to character specific, I'd say "Ryu, Ken, Akuma and Sagat" are in the same category. The shoryuken spammers. Mostly ken is the most notorious for being a shoryuken spammer. Just bait these shoryukens and you're fine. careful on an ex-srk Ultra I can pop out and you'd eat it if you wont time your punishment correctly. I know I ate it once when I tried to do Fuerte's RSF. For Ryu, his tatsumaki might be spammed, your anti-air normal is ftw here, when he's just above you, use it. For Akuma, he's going to jump a lot. so you can use that to your advantage. You can try to anticipate an air hadouken and dash underneath to punish. Akuma's ultra one can pop out just like a shoryuken. though some scrubs will make it so obvious that they will use the ultra. As for Sagat, thank god he got nurfed, a lucky scrub ex-srk eats 1/3 your bar. The same goes to him as ken's, though tiger knee might pop up instead. and from far, fire balls.

Scrub Zangief is not to be feared! the Lariat spammer! a very easy way to break that. jump upwards and hit with a normal that has priority over Zangief's lariat. I wrote a post about the upward jump, check it out. Zangief's green hand is very punishable, even on hit. so use it to your advantage. A scruby gief wont know mix ups, so you wont have to worry about a random grab.

Scrub Blanka is a pain. Some characters can't punish his ball on block, so it might be a bit difficult. but for some character, like fuerte can run -> slide to punish his blocked ball. Jumping ins on Blanka might not work as they tend to use his electricity. Though sometimes a jump in would break it if you time it correctly.
Blanka's ball can be interrupted by a jab or strong just before he hits you. so you can try that. Blanka's other ball where he goes up and lands on you can be Focus Attacked. So when you see that coming, start charging your Focus Attack and once he land release it. Then punish as desired.

as for Cammy, her srk has insane priority. you will see it a lot, try to anticipate it and punish. her screw move is punishable on block, but try to act fast because mostly a srk will come out after it. Lastly her move where she spins in the air to grab you can be dashed under to avoid it.

I haven't seen many scrubs who would pick guile, but I found someone and he's was so annoying, I wrote about him in my last post. seezar, just jumps backward and sonic boom, if you get close, he would sweep.
For guile, his sweep hits twice, you can try and punish between his two kicks. Mainly for charge characters, you can try and change positions from left to right or right to left to screw your opponent's charging.

for the new characters, Juri is annoying, her air move where she slides on you breaks your FA! I think it's too nooby friendly. You can just block and punish if they do the whole animation. Her legs fan move has too many hits so you can't FA that. usually Juri gonna pick Ultra II, so you can bait that out of them when they get it.

finally for Adon, they will spam his wall dive kick followed by his srk. You can actually punish his wall dive as he's getting to you, or you can wait for them to srk afterwards and punish.

Some other characters scrubs might pick are Balrog (Boxer), they will spam headbutt. If you anticipate it you can hit low followed by any special, headbutt can be easily broken by a low hit. Or you can just wait for it then punish but the punishing window is short.
Vega (Clas), they will keep spamming wall jumps, Focus Attack it and punish accordingly.

If you want to get better you should play against good players. but sometimes only scrubs are available online at a given time. So, yeah..
Enjoy.

Haters, Part II

I finally finished my projects last week and entered 3 different competitions with these projects. Won IEEE 1st place in "Made in UAE" category, Won IEEE 2nd place in "Common Design" category, and Won 2nd place and Best Idea in "ESREC'2010". It was a week full of awards ^_^!

So now that I'm done from these stuff, I finally entered the online world of SSFIV! I liked the lobby system and how you can spectate matches. But one thing I did not like... THIS MAKES HATERS EVEN HATE MORE! lol.

I'm so gonna sound arrogant in this post. So guys bare with me on this one.

Back in the days, when you beat someone up badly, they would have the idea that their big bro or their pro friend would come and kick my ass later on. But now that SSFIV supports multiple player. This guy watches his beloved ones die and suffer in pain by the same hands that took away his life. Suddenly you see your mail box being spammed by hate mail. lately I've became to a realization. IGNORE THESE MESSAGES. they're too annoying to reply. Don't even bother opening them. That's what I started to do.

around 4 days ago, I joined this room that was almost full, I finally get my turn and I kept my position at top for around 25 matches. one of the players namely "seezar" is a scruby Guile, "Sonic boom, Sweep, Jump Backwards, Sweep, Repeat". I'm not sure if he knows that Guile has another special move. Anyways, I win this guy like with 4 perfects, until now everything is going smooth, then my friend joins this lobby, we had a very close game, he won eventually. So I see a message from seezar, it was like this "You NOOB! you spammer!, this guy won you with effort!!" and something like that. Well, if playing viper and using her FFF/SJFADC/SJC-Seismo is being noobish, then I guess I am a Noob.

Next round when I reached on top again it was against my friend also, so when the round started, this seezar guy started spamming empty messages to me hoping that I would lose. Well, I did not lose, so, let him burn more! I blocked this guy afterwards.

Next day, I join a game, I find the same guy in the lobby, my guess is this time he's with his friends in the lobby, suddenly a random guy that i never met sends me a message saying "Fight like a man", I thought probably this seezar told his friends that I dont play like a man? >.>, well whatever, I beat everyone in the room and leave. I started then to get swamped by message, so I blocked them all.

Later I join another room, I got kicked instantly. I send the host "Trable-Boss" a message asking him if he was afraid? he said he aint afraid of kids that post videos of their matches on youtube. So I thought maybe he does not want to have losing vids of him on youtube? but the "kid" part was funny, I ask him how old are you?, he replies with something that has totally nothing about answering. He starts saying dont you have school to go to and homeworks to do? I cracked a bit, asked him again, ok how old are you?, again he does not answer, instead he kept swamping me with curses and hatred. Then one friend of mine tells me that he's a high school kid. So I leave him be and left.

I again join another room to get kicked instantly. What's happening. A friend told me this is the tax of being famous~ lol. And just moments ago, I join a room with low level players and started winning them. I leave to go eat lunch, I come back to find at least 20 messages of the same people inviting me back to the room, namely "hadif001" and "night-madness", so night tells me my bro will kick your ass, come to the room. Well, if his bro is any good, I would accept a good match, the problem is I could not join the room again, not sure why, kept trying, restarting but with no hope. So I decided to just ditch the game. So both of them kept saying I chickened out, I already joined another room while they were swamping me with mail. So I could not reply them. And while I was playing in the other room, I realized that I dont really have to answer these mails and that its just a waste of time and energy.

I dont understand some people. Just because they lose they start hating. Some people would use that to improve and become better, which what all people should do. But just hating on is stupid. you lose because you don't practice enough. You should at least respect the effort put on training by the other player when you lose constantly. Then you should ask yourself why do you keep losing and work on improving yourself.

I've played around 500 matches up to now in SSFIV, and I got a win rate of 83% So to all of you haters who think that I am some 'noob' , stop hating and get better instead.

SSFIV Trial completed, and thoughts!

DAMN COLLEGE PROJECTS!!!!!!!

ok.. now that out of the way, I have not been able to write up here regarding new updates for SSFIV :(, but I managed to fight couple of minutes to write this post.

I got SSFIV finally only 1 minute after it reached the shop in AbuDhabi at around 8:30pm for around 190dh, not that bad really.

Went back home and tested it out. So far loving it. The online mode was even more fun, though there was some problems with people unable to join our rooms.

I've later tried the Trial mode and finally finished them all around 2 days ago and I'll mention some of the stuff about trial that are worth mentioning.



I'll be discussing them in order.

Ryu: Lv.24, 3 links and strick timing, took me a while
Ken: Much easier than SF4, nothing was too hard.
Chun-Li: nothing too anoying
E.Honda: There was 1 annoying one but I cant recall which one.
Blanka: was actually easy!, 15 minutes maximum
Zangief: The last level with the 4 links was stupid.
Guile: Nothing to mention
Dhalsim: Had some tricky trials, but nothing too hard
Balrog: OMG, Trial 22, spent over an hour, the rest are easy.

Vega: had 1 stupid link trial, more of luck really for that one.
Sagat: nothing too hard
M.Bison: nothing too hard
C. Viper: almost the same as SF4, nothing too hard for a viper player
Rufus: couple of stupid link combos, but rest are easy
El Fuerte: Trial 23 BLOWS, took me a little over 30 minutes
Abel: nothing too hard.
Seth: Quite easy
Akuma: nothing too hard

Gouken: nothing to mention
Cammy: nothing to mention
Fei Long: Lv.19 took me about 10 minutes, annoying. rest are not hard
Sakura: long combos but not hard to link really.
Rose: nothing too hard, nice combos with her ultra 2
Gen: lv.24 was much easier than SF4 Hard trial 5, but still took me around ~15 min because of his "Aweeewa"
Dan: lv.23 or 24 took some time due to stupid timing for the air ex-senpu kyaku.
T.Hawk: Probably the easiest.
Dee Jay: nothing to mention

Guy: nothing to mention
Cody: nothing to mention
Ibuki: Lv.24 took me some time, but because its almost as viper's SJC to ultra, I didnt struggle much, probable around 20 minutes to get used to the link.
Makoto: Lv.24 had a new idea, loved it, took me some time.
Dudley: nothing too hard
Adon: Annoying.. (As a character, lol), nothing too hard
Hakan: Lv.19 was tricky, but figured it out, nothing else was too hard
Juri: Loved the Lv.24 idea, sweat combo ideas. nothing too hard


I've been loving Makoto lately and practicing her, hopefully I'll be able to play online once i finish my stupid projects. Till next post' ;)

Over 1900 hours of gameplay!

So, I have been playing STREET FIGHTER IV for quite a while, for over a year that is. And here is a Screenie of my record.



I just reached 1900 hours of game play "On my console" not to mention playing in friends' house, playing in cafe, or playing STREET FIGHTER IV on my laptop, So I am guessing over 2000 hours of game play.

I got all Titles and Icons which was fun. I didn't really do much in ranked matches because I enjoyed friendly matches way more, and also the "Lag Factor" if you go to my older entries.

The 7666 is the rounds I played totally online (Excluding offline), with 70% winning rate, I somehow blame the lag :P, but it does not matter now that Super is coming out and me upgrading to a better internet speed. I will be aiming for at least 80%+ in Super!

As for the winning streak I am not sure how that works, I don't remember how I got the 41, but hopefully again in Super I will make it higher.



These are the medals that I got, I had 536 "CHEAP" wins, hahaha. 489 Perfects~

Now I will start showing my Character Record from lowest played to most.


25) Rose: Only 10 rounds online, Rose is a good character, I did not give her her chance probably, but I enjoy playing other characters.



24) Dan: I think everyone has the same thing, Dan is a Joke character, we play him when we feel like kidding around.. OYAJIIIII~

23) Vega: This is a good character, but I didn't try him that much I guess.

22) Gen: Probably I didn't play Gen because he might die any moment in the match? though he is fun to play with if you know how to do his mk hands combo.

21) Fei long: "NOT MY TYPE"...

20) Blanka: I might as well hate characters that lack combos. For some reason, I don't like Blanka :(

19) Sakura: She's fun to play with, and has nice long combos, but has little options once cornered or pressured, not that good with serious matches.

18) Cammy: to say the truth, I HATE PLAYING AGAINST CAMMY, maybe thats why I dont pick her a lot, but lately I started playing her and she's quite fun to honestly.

17) Sagat: "CHEAP" enough said, lol, I dislike playing him. I might give him a shot in Super because he's gonna be better



16) Rufus: I probably picked him to try couple of combos online, I dont enjoy playing him though.

15) Gouken: Fun character.

14) E. Honda: I love this character, he got some nice moves and tricks.

13) Ken: Probably I chose Ken so I show those many scrubs online how to actually use him, none the less, I don't like Ken myself.

12) El Fuerte: A good character to ANNOY THE HELL out of your opponent, I played him mostly to do the RSF online.

11) Abel: Very good mix-up game, fun to play.

10) Seth: Really fun to play, best zoner in the game.

9) Zangief: Lately I started enjoying playing Gief, I DO NOT SPAM LARIETS! :P, I love his normals, and his grabs, I like these type of characters, T.Hawk gonna be one of my mains in Super!



8) Chun Li: was my second main after I bought the game, though I left her later.

7) M. Bison: I love this guy, his pokes are TOO GOOD, although he didnt have many ultra set-ups.

6) Dhalsim: Probably I fell in love with this guy after Iyo has won Japan's national SFIV tournament 2008, he got many tricks and long long pokes o.o

5) Akuma: Very interesting character, WAY TOO MANY WAKE UP SETUPS, amazing combos. all in one character, though not many ultra setups to speak of.

4) Guile: My 3rd main after Chun Li, I played him quite a while before finally switching off. he has really great normals.

3) Ryu: My first main when I bought the game. Come on, who didn't choose him when he bought the game? :P, Though I started hating him when I realized he had way too many options with easy setups and combos.

2) Balrog: I won Dubai World Championship with him last year. He is a fearsome straight forward IN YOUR FACE character. I stopped playing him now though, I got rusty with him!

1) C.Viper: 3000 online rounds with her! Almost as double as the rounds I played with Balrog, my ex-main. Yet I am having trouble playing against Balrogs online with viper. I love this character, Very hard to master, but the reward is really great. she's a very tricky character with all her feints and cross ups. With her new Ultra in Super and increased hit points by 50, and with Sagat/Zangief being nerfed, Viper will definitely be more noticeable now.

I did not show my Arcade Stick that I got in my Arcade Stick Entry, so, here are some pics :P

Dubai Gamerz Tournament

This thursday Dubai gamerz tournament launched for both SFIV and some other game, football i think, whatever that game name is, I dont give a damn :P

It was group system for people who came before ~5pm, and elimination for people who came after 5 but before 6.

Each group had 8 people, and only 3 from each group qualifies, everyone fights everyone in the group, 1 set, 3 rounds. There was 6 groups, For me, I came in late, So i joined the elimination rounds, 1 set, 2 rounds. My first round was against a good chun-li, I won 2-0, my second one was with an average Boxer, I guess he had no experience whatsoever against C.Viper, as Balrog can destroy viper easily. So after my win I went to semi finals!

If i recall correctly those are the people who qualified from each group:

Group 1: Ryu, Sagat, Zangief
Group 2: Zangief, Chun Li, Akuma
Group 3: Dhalsim, Zangief, Chun Li
Group 4: Blanka, Zangief, Ryu
Group 5: Gen, El Fuerte, Chun-Li
Group 6: Guile, Ken, Rufus
*From Elimination* : C.Viper(me), Ryu

As you can see there were 4 Zangiefs.. (lol).. though only 1 Sagat, which was kind of nice..

I've seen many great rounds from these group fights. one of them was an El Fuerte player (Akashwan) from group 5 that won 7/7 matches, he destroyed everyone in his group which was great because fuerte is an almost forgotten player. Another player Ken (Tan_UAE) has showed a very fearsome Ken. Also a Chun Li (Dukefleeed) from group 5 was playing in a really interesting way, not to mention Guile player (Booom300) who destroyed a good boxer in his group and showed really good matches. Also a very scary Gen player (UAE4HAMAD) who showed no mercy for his opponents though he is too old and going to die at any second now (Gen..) lol.
Rufus (Mho-J) from group 6 was also performing a great job.
I haven't been able to see group 1-2-3 matches, so I'm not sure how those worked out.

2 guys came from Kuwait specially for this event. One was Ryu and the other was Chun Li. The Semi-Finals has finally started. I cant remember the order of the fights, but I'll write what I remember.
First the order has been decided by drawing the names, the last name was El-Fuerte who has been qualified by chance.

Gen has faced a Gief in his first semi-final round, as though this Gen was very good, he had a bad match-up against Zangief, so naturally he lost, but he had a great performance to speak though~

A friend of mine Chun Li (Dukefleeed) has faced the Kuwaiti Chun Li, First the Kuwaiti Chun was winning, but Duke has done a great comeback and won in the end, it was an interesting mirror match.

Guile (Booom300) "Who won last UAE tournament" had this minor injury in his thumb, so he did not perform that well, though he did qualify to semi-finals regarding the pain he had :P . He faced a Sagat (Ammar_) who was also one of the Organizers of the tournament. They both did a great job but Sagat won in the end. Hard luck to our friend Guile :)

Then comes my game, I, C.viper(SedoSan) Faced a Zangief(alain599)!!, My luck! :P, last tournament in the semi-finals I met a Zangief as well, (lol)... But this time I had much better concentration than last time. I did not screw up my combos this time at least. I lost my first round though I was leading, I won my second round, Lost my third then won my fourth, the last round we both had less than 5% hit points left. I know Zangief was going to jump on me. AND HE DID JUMP! A flash came across my mind that I won.. I used my Ultra!!!, Usually my ultra will punish jump-in attacks. The thing is, My ultra did not come out! *Bummer* and I got kicked in the face :P and So, I lost and was disqualified.

I cant recall what happened between the Blanka(SoulEliminator) and the Kuwaiti Ryu (Najeebi)sp? As there was a strong battle going on the other screen between Ken(TAN_UAE) and Zangief(RMT)sp?
The Ryu has won in that round against Blanka. But in the other battle, Ken was leading and DOMINATING in the first couple of rounds, he totally annihilated Gief, though I dont know what happened to him in the 3rd round. Looks like Gief has casted a Spell in his heart and GAVE HIM FEAR. Ken was almost paralyzed, he kept defending, RMT has totally changed the outcome of that fight and finally won 3-2. btw this ken has won 2nd place in last UAE tournament, but he was playing Akuma that time.

I dont recall Dhalsim's round, but he lost, The other Chun-Li has lost to the Kuwaiti Ryu If I recall correctly.

Rufus won an average Ryu in his first round. Then Rufus has met Zangief(Alain599) and won him, I dont recall who took out Akuma, but that akuma was an average player.

Then there was Fuerte's Match against Sagat who took out Guile. First round Sagat won, Second round Fuerte has done a great come back. Third round Fuerte has baited sagat to tiger shot and used his ultra! Everyone clapped once the Ultra animation went off, but what shocked everyone is that Fuerte did not land on Sagat, though he was close!! Then we realized something was wrong with the controller, but Fuerte couldnt do anything about it, and under frustration he lost his 3rd round as well.. But lesson learned from this is "Bring your own controller next time" :P

Sagat then Faced Rufus, and it ended with Rufus winning. This Sagat was an average+ Sagat though.

Kuwaiti Ryu has lost to RMT's Zangief. Al though this Ryu was a great one, it looked like he had no experience against Gief fights, he kept falling for his grab traps and his wake up cross ups.

Sagat has faced the Kuwaiti Ryu to decide who would be ranked 3rd, it ended with Sagat winning.

In the final battle, Rufus(Mho-J) has faced Zangief(RMT), this is the youtube link. As you can see, Zangief has won the tournament, From the video you will notice TOO MUCH NOISE coming from cheering :P, Those guys were cheering insanely. Some of the "Sentences" that came out were:

Show him that the Kitchen is his place! (Fuerte vs Sagat)
Let the Russian teach this Beautiful girl that fighting is not what she should do (Viper vs Gief)
This Indian Guy came in without a VISA! (Dhalsim vs *I cant remember*)
And lots of their comments were like: "Come on, you dont have to fight, you will lose 3 rounds perfect, Just sign him Victory!!" Usually saying this to people against their friends in fights.

Some were funny, Some were just annoying and uncalled for.

Over all, the tournament was good, great players, had lots of fun, though i wish i won :P

There was a Draw in the end for the guests and viewers. 5 prizes, They drew the first name "Name 1 here", a little kid comes and pick up his PSP. The second name was "Name 1 here" again! they said wow, really lucky, but they didnt give him the 2nd prize, a third name was drawn and it was "Name 2 here", so another kid "Kid 1's friend" comes and take the prize, a PSP. The 4th name was "Name 2 here" AGAIN!!!, people started doubting. They checked the names in the box. almost 50+ of them were both of these kids name. THERE WAS MANIPULATION! These prizes were revoked from these kids and justice has been received! *MUWAHAHAHA*...
So what they did is they took the name tags from the participants and did the draw from it later. and everything worked normally then.

After the match lots of people stayed and played against each other. It was great. In the end, everyone left :P Duh..

So.. Tournament finished.. There is another tournament in 3 weeks in AbuDhabi. But SSFIV would've been out already by then.

Thoughts about changing to Arcade stick.

So, I've finally gotten myself a Sweet SFIV MadCatz TE arcade stick. These things feel smooth and pretty!

This is my second day trying out the arcade stick...
IT IS HORRIBLE! LOL.. no not really. I used to play with an arcade stick back in the arcade shops in the city, (Happy Land and Wahda Mall) and in the old days where Action Zone existed and KOF was still there. So, in other words, I do not totally suck in Arcade sticks!

My wrist begun to swallow from the stick wrist handle? I am not sure if it is because of their design, or my hands.. but I might just get used to it eventually.

I am happy about placing the stick on my lap while playing, It does not slide nor affect my input. I like the buttons and how smooth they are, they are (Sanwa) parts, a very good if not the best company that produces arcade equip.

Now for gameplay.........
......
.....
It was sad.. lol
....

Well, I started my very first character with the stick with Cammy, her instant cannon strike was much much easier to perform on the stick. I'm used to this move input because I used it a lot with C.Viper for her instant burning kick. It is the same motion.

I was able to perform FADC to either forward or back dash with no problems. I perform ultra no problem, but not as fast as the joystick.

I found myself to keep getting confused over which is a punch and which is a kick. I kept trying to do a canon spike with a punch button!

I found myself not being able to perform option select inputs with the arcade as easy.

Viper's Free FADC is much harder to do on the stick (for now). Also lots of viper tricks is harder for me to do (now) on the stick, instant SJ BK, Ex-Seismo xx Ex-Seismo. SJC-Ultra, and lots of other stuff, I have to work hard on them all again now :(

Though, Viper's FFF is much easier to do in the stick, and chances I'll screw and get super or ultra is much less now.

I still use 3 buttons to perform EX move instead of 2 buttons, this troubles me when a 3 buttons is used for characters for different moves such as akuma's teleport, and akuma's EX-Shoryuken. Also, sometimes an Ultra will come out instead of the EX because I press all 3 buttons, I have to get used to 2 buttons only.

Seems I still have some execution problems when trying to perform a qcb motion. a SRK comes out!! its ridiculous, I go from down to left on the stick, and a SRK comes out, I try to do viper's thunder knuckle, yet a seismo comes out! how sick is that? I have no idea why that happens, but it happened to me in the arcade shop as well, so I guess I am doing something wrong.. I have to work on this.

Piano input works BEAUTIFULLY, i am very happy with this. I am doing Honda's hands out of his jab everytime. its crazy! I have not tried blanka/gen/etc yet. I tried Chun-li's ex legs, but did not spend long time on it. Seemed kinda tricky.

Trying to press up alone seemed also tricky, Pressing down alone is way easier coz of how your hand is shaped, you can push your 4 fingers down to go down, but to go up, you have to push the stick with your thumb, and it has to be exactly up, I found myself sometimes go up right or up left, so I try to be extra careful when trying to press up, but when I do that, i almost left my hand off the stick and causes some trouble so I have to work on that as well.

I've tried Double tapping and P-linking, Its very hard to get adjusted to them at first, But I hope this gets better with time. I found it much easier to link 2+ frame links with double tapping, but its hard to adjust to that in the middle of a combo, as my mind will focus on double tapping and forget to continue, so that I have to work with.
I found it easier to link 1 frame link with the traditional on the spot press, but that's probably because I got good timing, I'd get 7+/10, but if with priority I can increase that, I would go for it, but from what i've seen now, p-linking is somehow difficult, and as I said above, I have to adjust to it when in a middle of a combo.

Guile and Vega's Ultra are much easier to land with the stick. I'd say 90% to 65% on the joystick.

Basically, Stuff your muscle brain memorized with the joystick wont help you here. The timing only might help you, but the places of the buttons wont.
I'm used to punish some moves that get a little range with viper's cr.mk to m.TK, I found myself never doing this on the arcade stick, I have to rebuild my muscle memory all over again.

Well, I hope this is going to be worth it. But starting today, I will only use the arcade stick!.. well, there is a tournament next week, so I might use the joystick one last time before completely converting to the Arcade Stick. Till then, Have fun ;)