We recently took 3rd in our team tournament in San Jose. It was a good showing and meeting everyone there was exciting. My buddy Leo was enjoying himself quite a bit. He had lots to drink!
We wanted to create a new team order: have my buddy Javier (Cynistar) last and either my buddy Chow or me up first. I decided to go up first. The reason for this order was to build Javier's confidence. He's at the stage where getting over nerves will help him play his game. Once he does he's very hard to fight. Our first match I had beaten a Guile player with strong fireballs. I controlled the pace of most of the match and even if I had a disadvantage it didn't feel so. I stayed with my game plan and pushed him to the corner while building super meter. Next, I lost to a Blanka player. I've beaten him before but I played completely absent minded. I jumped in twice and he punished me both times. From there he sat on a lead and I couldn't get a lead back. He played well from the last time we played. I enjoyed the loss. Against Blanka I forget to play a strong ground game, but now I know. The Blanka player lost to Chow (Abel) and Chow lost to Marcos (Vega) who was anchor for the opposing team. Finally, it came down to our anchor Javier. What I wanted to see from him is if he could control the situation. He ended up winning but it was a significant win. From there on I knew he'd be more confident playing in any position.
I feel like our team arrangement for the tournament was good for most of the tournament. After losing against the Blanka, I decided to play on point as if I was anchor and OCV'ed another strong team consisting of Nu (Gen), Tim (Ibuki), and Scunsion (Fei Long).
We finally had to play against Ryan, John Choi, and Ricky. We had a chance to change our order but I decided to go first to fight Ryan. Before we met in Semi-Finals, Ryan and I played for a bit. I had studied the match-up ahead of time and played at satisfactory level. I asked Ryan how I did and he said I'm doing better. However, doing things better creates new habits. I tried to dp after 3 standing shorts (which I don't know why). When it came down to me playing Ryan in the tournament I was able to read a couple of his buttons. One jump in on his standing strong and a dp on one of his slides. I beat him two rounds straight and it made me feel good about the time I've taken to study the matchup. I had a lead for both rounds and slowly let him press buttons. At the same time I tried to counter-poke with a crouching strong. The match-up I didn't understand felt more understanding. I now love the match-up! Next was John Choi and he completely outplayed me. I decided to concede fireballs, but that was a horrible idea. John out fire balled me and out spaced me. I knew I had played it wrong since he had a lot of life left. I asked John during a session about how I did in the match-up. He said just don't over think the match-up.
Javier decided to play John since he wanted to fight him. It was great to see him step up and fight one of his hard match-ups. He lost the same way Ed Ma did in Devastations (out-zoned). Finally, Chow beat John and then lost to Ricky. That was it for us, but it was a good showing. Some things to take away from the tournament was our team order. We built a lot of trust and confidence in each other playing the way we did. it doesn't matter what order we do as long as we're playing as a team. That's what I can take away from this tournament.
-Miky
P.S. I'll do a write up on the casuals against Ryan.
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