I'm really lookin... oh wait, Tournament Series thread! OMW ^_^

Good luck to all of you participating in the tourney!

Kruza

Shout outs to...

LA Akira: thanks for sharing some insights and giving me tips on how to improve my game. Our match was a lot of fun.
Haunts: GREAT match! You have SICK Goh.
Zerochan: Your pony brought me good luck

everyone else I played: GG's guys/gals, and apologies for running out so early... Had to get on the next BART back home. Had a crazy long day and not enough sleep. -_o

Oh wells. GG's, goodnight all, and see ya next month!

Haunts and Renzo play in a fashion that is gratifying to watch on a technical and entertainment level. Great stream.

Not being able to attend these makes me a sad little fishie.

66p...

Good stream, some epic matches, Jeans haymaker ftw??!

gg's to everyone at southtown yesterday.

great meeting raoul and ice-9.

good seeing the homie L_A as always (can't wait to hang out in socal )

good hanging out with everyone, silepai, soakrates, zerochan, radical reactor, cobratron, haunts, skech, blackrock, hatperson, renzo, crazydrunk, and everyone else i forgot to mention.

casuals kind've got off to a late start but wasn't so bad since everyone got to chat a bit more than the last few times and i got to play kof13 2 minutes at a time. (southtown runs console kof13 on a timer in the cabinets you guys see us play fs on so its kinda funny and challenging playing against the cpu and all of the sudden time runs out on you )

i thought the tourney was run pretty well and there was a bunch of exciting matches. i can tell everyone is getting more comfortable with the game and tournament jitters are becoming more manageable. congrats to renzo for taking it again, gerald for sticking with jacky/pai, and ice 9 for showing that fundamental kage can do work.

as for my play, i felt i did really well in casuals but once tourney time rolled around i was just jumping all over the place and trying to rocket discharge 9k+g my way to victory. rewatching my play looks so funky, haha all my vf fundamental practice out the window. but props to crazy drunk and zerochan for taking me out. back to the drawing board.

anyways thanks to the peeps at sega for bringing the lindberg kits out, thanks to southtown for hosting, and thanks to iplaywinner for the stream and running the tourney.

hotdog!

Awesome event! It was great meeting everybody and it was so nice to be able to enjoy VF again. I haven't really played VF since leaving the Bay area in 2007 except for a two hour session with VF:R when on holiday in Japan, so the first few matches were a little wonky LOL!

FS felt great and a definite improvement from 5. No more throw clashes for one! But sadly, evade attacks were removed. The new throw system was really difficult to adjust to especially during high pressure, fast reaction required moments. I kept going for + and + only to get Kage's cool looking neutral throw, though I'm sure that worked out in my favor from time to time.

By far the most difficult thing to get used to was NOT doing evade double/triple throw escape. It's amazing how much of a habit it's become to do it in disadvantaged situations, and when the pressure is on (tournament time) I found myself doing it over and over. LOL. The worst part is that I usually input the first throw escape as +, so even though I wanted to escape or my evade throw escape only counted for neutral. Argh!! I think in the long run though the throw system is much better - it's more yomi-based and friendlier to the less hardcore.

I experimented with Kage's FS moves but I had a lot of trouble using them effectively when winning mattered. I didn't have the confidence so just stuck to bread-and-butter VF5 Kage...with kick ass VF5 combos LOL.

Congrats to Renzo on the championship!! I wish I could've played his Jean more! I didn't know after getting hit with it was a 50-50 guessing game between blocking high and low. I kept struggling and trying to evade the damn follow-up LOL and of course kept getting hit. Argh. Well now I know!

It was really good meeting up with everyone...Gerald thanks for letting me crash on your sofa. Raoul it was awesome catching up with you again...I miss you dude, it's been much too long. Jenny thanks for bringing me to Muracci's and showing me where the arcade is.

Met a lot of new faces with a lot of potential...VF is going to be just fine in Norcal!

Postscript:

Just saw some of the streaming matches! Wow, it's kinda entertaining to hear people talk about you. Sort of like being a fly on the wall. Quick notes...

- I wasn't in Japan for a month! (I wish!!!) Was just there on holiday with some friends but sadly only got a couple hours of play in. I was also heavily brutalized during those couple hours LOL by players I had no business playing against, so it was really hard to learn anything.

- I haven't touched VF for over a year...as in, didn't even play Xbox CPU. But the last time I played VF with humans for an extended amount of time was before in the Bay area. Did I get a few sessions in Singapore since then? Possibly, but don't remember which probably says it all.

- I wanted the 1P side not because I'm better on 1P but because when I'm on the 2P side I "feel bad" for taking up space so would often sit a little bit more to the right than I should, which causes me to make lots of input errors. (More than usual anyway ). So on the 1P side I can comfortably sit and not feel bad, which is why I requested it. You don't get this problem when you have Versus City cabinets of course.

In fact some people were saying the 1P controls on the tournament machine weren't perfect, or as good as 2P. But I didn't have any major problems.

- Against Gerald's Pai, I didn't pick wall stage, Gerald did. Why? Try 117 points of damage from a swallow kick! I made sure we did random the second match LOL. Not that it ended up mattering.

- I wasn't sandbagging during casuals!! Just experimenting and learning people's styles and tendencies. So if you beat me during casuals you beat me, I wasn't mucking around.

Good games everybody...I did alot better in casuals than last time...still did horrible in tourney...it seems like everyone is leveling up OK considering we only get to play for a few hours a month...Ice9 ur Kage is inspiring and pretty to watch and because of that ill be putting more time in the lab with him than I have.

Overall it was just fun to play this game with others who share the same love of VF. I hope everyone who made it out last nite and the previous events come to the next 2 as well as any other future gatherings in the area.

Wow! Thanks for the kind words!

Once again, it was a wonderful experience going up to the bay area and southtown to play the game I love and meet some of the wonderful friends I've made through the game.

Renzo: great games and lets keep the back and forth going like we've been doing since 2007. Always fun playing you.

Ice9: So glad you were able to make it and we were able to hang out again. The first game you played vs me in casuals I could feel your ring rust but by the tournament rolled around a few hours later, I was really impressed how much able to shave off. By the time we played in the semis, I could feel alot more of the core structure still intact.

001: great work improving since last time. Keep it up and don't get discouraged no matter what. We all have stuff we need to work on and get better with but thats the fun in VF. Sometimes it's a microcosm for life.

Zero: I don't even think we were able to play this time but I'm sure we will on the 19th. Like I tell everyone, I really admire your ability to not panic and not be afraid of guarding when you need to. I think there are quite a bit of people that could learn to do this better by watching you.

Cobratron: It was great chillin with you, man. I enjoyed the games we had in casuals. Dont be afraid of trying to p, throw or 2p throw your opponent. It will help soften them up and make them more vulnerable to eileens strings.

CrazyDrunk: thanks for the matches and keep up the good fight! There are generally pretty few shun players in the US and we need to all stick together like they do in japan. Remember what we talked about on the way to the indian restaurant. Working on those few things will greatly improve your game.

Haunts: thanks again for running the stream. It's a great thing you are doing supporting the game we all love. Streams like this are an important tool for growing the community and i'm so glad you are doing it. Also, I was impressed watching your matches vs radical reactor, I think it was. He abare'd about three 2p CH throw attempts of yours and the next round after that you switched it up and got some pretty awesome combo damage. As simple as it might seem from a spectators point of view, it's not always so easy when it's you in the game. I'm glad you were able to adapt and get the W.

Radical Reactor: Your game has greatly improved since last time you played so keep up the great work, man! I think the next tep for your game is learning the in-s and outs of fuzzy guard. It's not that complex. Trust LA!

Jenny: Once again, thank you so much for taking me all around SF today. I really enjoyed Yank Sing and walking on the pier with you, renzo and renzo's gf. When you come down to LA for the 19th, I plan to repay your hospitality the best I can.

Sokrates: next time lets get some games in. I think we only got one or two games in casuals this time.

If there is anyone else I forgot, i'm sorry!!!!!!

I got totally scraped at this tourney, haha. I did actually manage to improve a bit during casuals after I was eliminated though. Now to find a way to retain what I learned for a month without actually playing the game. :|

To everyone: please give me feedback on the commentary and tell me what you liked/didn't like. I've been told that I'm pretty good at it and I want to do more of it, but I feel that I'm pretty weak at commentating VF right now, so be as brutally honest as you like.

Gerald: Yeah man, we definitely gotta play more. I leveled up a bit in casuals after being eliminated, but with my schedule I'm not really able to show up until just before the tourney starts, which leaves very little time for warm-up, hah.... Good games either way though. Hope to see you at the next one!

Shoutouts to everyone else: 001, ice-9 (great meeting you!), Zerochan, Crazydrunk, Jeff and anyone else I'm forgetting. We had a pretty great turnout again (!) and I hope we can keep the momentum leading up to release.

I thoroughly enjoyed watching Haunts, Zerochan, Ice-9 and Renzo go to town. Haunts was making Goh's throws look sexy. Good stuff guys.

Commentating was fine bro from the last event to this one. Don't worry seems you have a knack for it. Also 001, and LA gave some really helpful insight during some matches. After watching my matches as well as few others I'm getting a better feel of how to get some mixups started and also changing it up when things aren't happening.

I'll stop forcing too many strings and also 3K alot more from range and opponent wakeup situations. It seems like alotta people stay in crouch after the knockdown includng myself.

And I feel like I will definitely make better use of my P and 2P pokes next time so i can at least feel things out before continuing on to combos or throws. Damn another month to wait.

Hopefully Sega's big announcement tomorrow is not only the release date but maybe a bump up to a May release date. Then the turnout for next STA gathering might actually clear 30 people. That would be awesome!