[9 Feb 2013] Best Bout Beatdown 20 (Portland, OR)

What?
Super Street Fighter 4 Arcade Edition 2012 Tournament (Xbox 360)
Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3 Tournament (Xbox 360)
King of Fighters XIII Tournament (PS3)
Virtua Fighter 5: Final Showdown (Xbox 360)
Tekken Tag Tournament 2 (PS3)
SFxT 2013 (Xbox 360)

When?
Saturday Februrary 9th, 2013
1pm: Doors and Signups open
2pm: VF5:FS/TTT2
3:30pm: AE
6pm: KoF 13/SFxT 2013
7pm: UMvC3

Side events: Most likely either Blazblue Continuum Shift Extend or Guilty Gear. Will update upon confirmation.

Where?
Best Bout Gaming
2409 SE 49th Ave.
Portland, OR 97206
503-442-5303

Cost?
$5 venue fee to enter any tournaments
$10 entry fee for SSF4/UMvC3 each.
$5 entry fee for VF5, KoF, P4A, SFxT 2013, TTT2 each (goes to prize pool)
(Free to watch, donations to support the cause are always appreciated however ; )

Prizes?
*Cash for 1st, 2nd and 3rd place in each tournament
*Pot split 70/20/10 for over 11 competitors
*11 or less - 1st 75% 2nd 25% 12+ 70/20/10
*Round Robin format: Winner takes all

Format?
Standard Double Elimination Format.
The grand finals and winners and loser finals will be best 3 out of 5. All other matches will be best 2 out of 3 games. Marvel and VF5 are all 3/5 games.

Stream:
http://www.twitch.tv/teamkhaos

 

Best Bout Beatdown 20 is looking pretty awesome, with the exception of AJS not being able to participate (he would be my tournament favorite, to be honest). Life happens, but the fighting goes on!

We have some Seattle players participating at Best Bout Beatdown 20, I plan to be there, Panda plans to be there, and more people are confirmed!

BBB20 should be a good brawl in VF5FS!

 

The Northwest featured Two Great Weekends of VF Back to Back!

Last weekend, Portland hosted Best Bout Beatdown 20 and players from Seattle attended to train and compete! The roster was quite good and the VF action was very fun, especially in the after session. The tournament was broadcast and archived. I will post my notes for that at the end of this post in quotes.

This weekend has had a wonderful development! Following a VF tournament hiatus, Seattle's own Saturday Slugfest 8 (by GameClucks) strikes back with some excellent VF action in a huge return to form! Not only that, but MasaRED makes a return to offline competitive VF (he never really left, he just got crazy busy with work!). R Panda brought a crew from Portland as well and lots of VF action ensues!

Also, this weekend hasn't ended yet! Panda has done an awesome job helping newer VF players and in fact, he is hosting a private session and "beginner's tournament" in Portland on Sunday! I have to say, I am very grateful that Panda has been working hard on developing a new generation of Portland VF players, filling in a void that Rayblade and myself are unable to fill these days. Thanks Panda!

A guide to Slugfest 8 (with links to the archive stream and bracket) can be found here!

Best Bout Beatdown 20 Recap
YouTube Playlist by TeamKhaos

Challonge Bracket

Chanchai's Notes on BBB20 (originally posted on NorthwestVF Facebook Group) said:

Well, I'll try to squeeze in a bunch of points now​

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* I am very happy I won the tournament, I honestly did not expect to win as I was feeling really off since 1pm when I got to Best Bout. ​

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* #1 issue for me was that I just felt incapable of observing and processing what the opponent was doing on a specific level. This only encouraged me to play more on auto-pilot and approach matches in the form of controlling my aggressiveness/defensiveness and trying to bait general errors as opposed to tactically adjusting to what's going on. In any case, I felt like I was very limited in playing an "interactive game" at the start of the tournament. Muscle-memory responses to low punches, elbows, jabs, and general pokes was going to carry much of the load that day. Relying on just this is "auto-piloting" and it implies that my capacity to fight on truly read and properly committed mindgames would be limited. ​

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* At one level of VF, you're doing the right things and this reduces your risks and sets up potential great rewards for you. On this level you're trying to "outplay" the opponent. Play the game better. But beyond that, you have to really engage the opponent and so that other level of high level of play is constantly shifting the elements your opponent has to consider, changing the values and risks of options, apply knowledge, read your opponent and tactically adjust--basically play more mindgames properly and outplay the opponent on the very specific. I was not feeling much of the latter until the Grand Finals.​

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* On top of that, guaranteed damage almost never happens when I'm in that sort of state. But yeah, I also just for whatever reason didn't think of Blaze's elbow-knee as well... a typical elbow knee that is highly punishable. Don't know why, it just didn't click and I was thinking of stuff like Lion's standing knee in older VF games that was much safer and not the same as a lunging knee. But in FS, every knee is pretty much at risk of guaranteed combos. But in general, when I have trouble actually watching my opponent's side of the battle, reactions to specific moves is generally slower.​

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* I didn't do my homework (on El Blaze). At home, I should be training against all characters and learning more about their movelists. ​

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* R Panda played really good in the tournament imo. I even felt that there were good things in the Grand Finals, but he lost strongly because he would approach the offense too obviously and without the amount of caution for the way I was playing against him--I was using backdash a lot against Panda and he whiffed a lot and got hit out of stuff all day. In general, Panda is good at fighting against this play, but during the tournament I sense that he was just nervous enough to not respond strongly to what I was doing and he was trying to just "play the general game better than me" in our match. He did not tactically adjust to the backdash during those matches until later, and he did not punish me for the stance shenanigans (I think that under the pressure, he was less sharp than usual). In casuals, I cannot play the way I did in the tournament against him for too long. ​

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* While most of the tournament I'm not the most crazy with how I played, I absolutely enjoyed all of my matches in the After Session at "The Downtown Dojo." I felt I was playing much sharper there and with a lot more interaction. I was watching what opponents were doing, I was using the matches to get a better sense of what the situation is after I got hit by or blocked various attacks and there was just a lot of fun and imo, beautiful VF that happened at the After Session.​

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* Panda: Overall played really good in the tournament and I felt he might win that day. David's improving and I think the frustration he had with the Grand Finals at least showed him that sometimes he needs to move forward cautiously. Not slowly, but just moving forward preparing to deal with what comes after. His play at the following Tuesday session already shows he's improving this already. I am glad Panda is not giving up on the strategy of patience, I think he's leveled up. Personal side note: after looking at the movelist, I think Brad's 6_K is so much better than 9P+K.​

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* Mike B: After rewatching matches, you need to hit-check your 6P. But let's assume (probably the truth actually) that you only did 6PK because I wasn't punishing you for that. Totally fair and a good way to adjust to opponents in tournaments. Just don't open yourself up to risk if your life is low enough to lose the round over it though. Same goes for me with 6PP! My impression is that you're overplaying the aggression from long and mid-range. It feels good for Blaze, but I feel like it could be a weakness if not better considered. My general tip for movement from long range is to use the box steps and when moving forward look at CD Fuzzy, ECD, and Dash-Evade-Dash. Some opponents you want to bait while you move forward. Some opponents you want to attack going forward. Figure out what type your opponent is and make adjustments if they adjust. Fighting you toe-to-toe is rough, very fun. You caught me a lot by going full string when evaded. I kept falling for certain setups. You have good okizeme, but you sometimes hold it back. I have a feeling that your okizeme is really good and could be applied better in the future. ​

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* Julien: You improved so much! Really, you have! You're playing much more of what I mentioned above as better general VF. You did have trouble with this before, but you've made so many gains in this area now. At this point, your opponents throws will become more dangerous to you because your flow will be a little more predictable. That said, the upside is that you have options in these positions too and they become much more deliberate mindgames. You're already doing well here, but just be aware that you are more open to throws at the moment and with experience and offline play, you'll build better defenses to throws and a sense of when your opponent will want to throw. In our marathon session, you dramatically improved your matchup against Lion. Dealing with lows is a tough one to improve upon... Some lows are not really worth worrying over because they do too little damage and give you advantage. Some lows are scary until defended. The scary lows are usually too slow though. You still sometimes finish your strings when it's dangerous to do so, but you improved a lot in this regard already. Really fun marathon session we had, you improved in our matchup dramatically that night. Movement is important in every VF character's game, so keep working on your movement--it allows you to play footsie similar to Street Fighter!​

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* Shouta: Really fun fighting you and hanging out with you again! I'm so grateful you drove down to Portland despite the lack of sleep and everything! I'm glad you're safe and sound too! Your El Blaze was fun to fight, but I know it was weathered down by the elements. Looking forward to more battles soon!​

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* Mackinzie: I want to see you playing more VF because you can and will become a better player. Good fights between you and Julien! Too bad we didn't get to play on Saturday in casuals.​

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* Jared: I already wrote a lot about your game in the Ft1 ftw conversation. Really glad you joined the tournament, that you keep supporting our scene, and still surprised how fast your rate of improvement in this complicated game is!​

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* Jaye: Sorry you had to face me at the start of the tournament but I'm so glad you participated and that we got to play a decent amount at the After Session! Your Brad's punishing damage is scary and your flow is good! Still quite a bit to work on, but you and Jared should fight each other a lot and eventually buildup a local rivalry ​

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* Shinryu Returns: Really glad Hollis came to the tournament and played! Just wish we had time to chat and play. That said, very fun matches!​

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* Special Mention - Yangsing: Thanks for coming to the After Session! If Chinese New Year didn't prevent you from going to the tournament, I would have bet on you! That said, I had a blast Saturday night in our back and forth marathon matches! I truly enjoyed the VF that we were playing for a good while on Saturday night! We eventually got into real footsie-sort of battles trying to bait attacks on both ends and it was fun! I hope the Seattle players got to see why I feel you are one of the best sparring partners to have! Really fun fighting your Blaze, Jeffry, and Kage. I was quite happy with a lot of the battles we had, on both sides.​

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Anyways, those are my thoughts... so there's your report man!​