Cursed. I am cursed. I got 9th today at the Games On tournament down in San Diego. Why is this happening to me. I was clearly within the top 5 people at this tournament. If I had hair, I would definitely be sporting some emo bangs right now.
Sanchez and ShglBMX made their way over to my place this morning and we all carpooled down to San Diego. Spirits were high. When we arrived at Games On, I was surprised with how nice the venue was. It was a game store with class. I felt super underdressed and that I should have had an appointment to go inside. 30 players appeared for this tournament which is a damn fine turnout. 1st place took home over $200 which is a nice chunk of change.
After the brackets were made, Sanchez and I were scheduled to play each other in the same quarter and Shgl had Viscant (San Diego’s premiere player) in his 2nd round. Wouldn’t you know it? Shgl won and send Jay to losers. I had a fairly easy time with my first few matches but come time for Sanchez, I was taken out. We got down to the last round in the third game, but his psycho science proved too great for my Gootecks 0.9 Balrog.
Isn’t life a bitch? I get Viscant, who battled all the way back from losers in my very next match. He picked Zangief against my boxer and, though I got rounds, I couldn’t take a game from him. Sanchez showed me some stuff later that would have definitely helped me be more competitive in that matchup. I was sullen and wistful. I thought at the very least I would enter top 8 if not top 5. Le sigh, brackets.
The outcome: 1st place Sanchez. 2nd place Viscant. 3rd place ShglBMX. John Rog…9th. Damnit, I need to level up my boxer ASAP. I think the next tournament is a team tournament at Arcade Infinity. I’ll have to see how that goes if I can make it.
Had casuals over at Dentron’s tonight. Lots of guys showed up including the legendary Alex Valle. I got to shake off a lot of rust and played a lot of games with Dentron, Luscious Luka, and Mr. Street Fighter himself, Alex Valle. I’ve still got a lot to work on and some of the mixups I’ve tried to create in practice mode don’t seem to be working as well as I had hoped. Oh well. Maybe next time.
Luka’s birthday party is tomorrow at Banana Bay which I will hopefully be able to make. Work just has me so drained lately. Banana Bay obviously means Arcade Infinity and Video 94 so it will be nice to get back to my starting grounds and work back up to where I was before. I really should get some practice in as Sunday is the San Diego tournament. Hopefully, I place well there.
This weekend was the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells, California. It’s a major tennis tournament that I go to every year for finals weekend. It made for a fantastic weekend with friends. It was unfortunate that I was unable to go to the first Arcade Infinity ranking battle of the season, but I had these tickets far too in advance.
I arrived in Palm Desert on Thursday evening after work at my friend Luke’s place. He owns multiple homes out in the desert so we were able to stay for free out there. Nice start to a weekend. We gambled a lot at various casinos including Agua Caliente and Spotlight 29. Over the course of the weekend, I think I lost around a grand. Oh well.
Tennis was great. I got to see a lot of my favorite players including Andy Roddick, Roger Federer, and Ana Ivanovic. The finals ended up being between Rafa Nadal and Andy Murray of Britain. Nadal took the tournament. High quality stuff.
The food we had over the weekend was quite delicious since we decided to just go balls to the walls crazy ever year. We dined at LG’s Prime Steakhouse where we had 24 amd 30 ounce porterhouse steaks. It was quite an experience. I started to sweat beef. Kind of gross I suppose.
We made frequent trips to the Tilted Kilt, an Irish pub/diner with friendly folk and decent food. I hadn’t had a Shepard’s Pie in quite a while. It was delicious. Pictures will probably tell why we went here so often.
Anyhow, just got back and I have a lot to write up and prepare for work tomorrow.
As a side note, I was playing with Kai earlier last week and I realized that I need to start going back to the arcades. Playing console only has really dulled me. I’ll save that for another post. Good night to all.
Gamestop National Street Fighter IV Tournament Round 3 in Glendale, Arizona
Well, put it into the record books: March 14th, 2009 is officially the worst day of my year thus far. If I had one of those “What am I feeling” things on the side of my site, it would read, “Reflective, abused, and downtrodden.” Scoop:
Friday morning Kai calls me to let me know that the 3rd round of the Gamestop tournament would be on 360 pads once again. This was truly saddening. I had been able to squeeze by the first two rounds on pad, but I was not comfortable playing against other people who had bested people on pads. On top of this, Kai told me that both Art and Peter from Video94 were going to be in Arizona.
Click to read on. Continue reading ‘Gamestop Tournament Round 3′
I am about to start my trip out to Glendale, Arizona for the Gamestop National Street Fighter 4 Tournament. I’m scared, yet excited. Kai, who I have a 1/10 chance of beating, is going to be at this tournament. Kai was the first person to take me out in a Street Fighter 4 tournament. I hope I can return the favor tomorrow if we meet. Say a little prayer, off I go.
Fuck my life. So if there is another franchise I love from Capcom as much as Street Fighter, it’s Resident Evil. I’ve played every Resident Evil bar a few of the portable titles and loved every game. I’ve always loved the Resident Evil mythos and have a fond attachment to the characters.
Through some stores that apparently do not know what street date is (not to be named, but they may have some edibles in the area), I have landed a copy incredibly early. I’ve reached chapter 4 so far and have been loving every minute of it. I need to be quickly done with this game if I ever want to get better at Street Fighter 4. It’s been really tough playing nowadays with extra hours at work kicking in and real life obligations.
I will probably be hosting a session for players going to Final Round in Georgia including Gootecks and Mike Ross this week so hopefully I’ll be able to retain some of the goodness they cook up. Just another hour or two at the office and it’s back to Africa, Tricell, and Chris Redfield’s 500 inch biceps.
As any computer nerd may tell you, the Intel i7 is fast; blazing fast. How fast? How about a full 25.14% faster than my previous E8400 chip? Yeah, I just had to get it. I just bought a new i7 920 with an Asus P6T motherboard. Six gigabytes of DDR3 1600. This computer is going to scream! What makes the i7 so great is how it will underpower and overclock itself to match what is needed of it. Think of it like a car’s limited slip differential; taking away from tires that slip and giving it to tires that grip.
My current machine is of the X58 chipset, but still a socket 775, so it was less than a year old, but when numbers like 25.14% are presented to me, I just could not turn it away. Hey, my tax refund was nice this year. =D
Before I begin to gut my computer, I just want to write that my two and out at Arcade Infinity this past week hit me pretty hard. I’ve stopped playing as many frivolous games with random people that induce bad habits. I’ve taken a lot of time to refine my game and come back to a more patient style that was helping me improve in the past three months. I’ve been playing a lot online with guys like Ken I and Ed Ma. Unfortunately, because Gootecks has not received his tournament stick yet, I have been unable to play him as much as I would have liked. I’ve started to come back to where I was when I was only playing the best. The next Arcade Infinity tournament is on the 22nd when I will, unfortunately, not be in town. I will be in Palm Desert watching the BNP Paribas tennis finals. I have had these tickets for months and they were $250 each so I can’t really skip on it. I will just need to make an impact at the tournament after.
The very first place I played Street Fighter IV. Thanks AI.
Just got back from the Arcade Infinity tournament where I played the worst Street Fighter of my career. I’m not sure whether it’s playing random people online, making the jump back from console to arcade, or playing two tournaments in two days, but for the very first time in my Street Fighter career, I went two and out. I wasn’t seeing things properly, I was impatient, and not punishing random whiffed stuff correctly. It’s a pretty terrible feeling.
