Day 3:

Other then my performance, without a doubt this was the day with the most hype of this event. I got out of bed extra excited due to last night’s performance of both team Canada and myself, so I couldn’t wait any longer and rushed to the venue.

Entrance booth

commentators and streaming staffs

streaming staffs + Lapchi on the phone

Abusing the “VIP” badge went for some free food (I forgot what the heck I ate by the way). Right after that I wanted to warm up before top 32, but in fact I watched top 3 of MVC3. Congratz to Fchamp defeating Justin Wong to be the champion of Canada Cup 2k11 in MVC3.

My memory became vague….took too long to write about this day, haha. Anyways, I am sure right after watching marvel, Top 32 of SSF4:AE started and I had to play Leslie (Sagat) first match. To be honest, I know the match up pretty well but I lack confidence not because the player I am facing, it was because the last time I played against a Sagat was my Japan training trip which was almost half a year ago. I became really worried that I might be rusty in this match up, therefore while I was lining up to play on the stream, I was trying to prepare myself by recalling what I should be doing in a Sagat match up like how to approach, mix ups, just strategies that I usually use on a Sagat. By the way, trust me, whenever you want more time, time flies by faster, LOL…and it was my turn and I think my mind was ready for Sagat.

Match started and the first 30 secs, I am like “Okay, I AM NOT READY FOR THIS”. Leslie’s zoning was top notch; it made me want to jump because of his fireball pressure. Before the match started I kept reminding myself the basic match up strategy is to zone and minimize my jump ins, but I don’t know if I was nervous or just being an idiot and kept jumping in. I couldn’t play the match up how I should be playing; as a result I lost the first set without doing much damage to him. If I remembered correctly, I took a minute to calm down and recall my mistakes from last match. I started the match again, and I did better, but I didn’t stop jumping in…then I realized that I am losing in the ground game by Sagat’s normal whiff punishing my low forward and Leslie’s freaking zoning made me couldn’t resist from jumping. I lost and I was angry about my performance….why did I jump so much? I know that in this match up who jumps more loses and I totally just gave Leslie the matches without any challenge.

While I was staying salty, I was desperate to find out who I have to play next to get my mind ready. However, I was told that the losers bracket were still running so I have

to wait and I wisely used those time to warm up myself at the casual setups. Not long later, I was told that my next opponent is Fchamp, I was like “great, I was praying anybody but him (Dhalsim)” but I mean that’s the reality, so I quickly grabbed Snafoo to practice with me and I was asking him if I should use Ryu or Yang. He immediately answered Yang, but I wasn’t confident with my Yang because I barely play him anymore and probably the last time I played him was some casuals at Seasons Beatings…he has his point though, Fchamp knows the Ryu match up inside out and it is one of Ryu’s worst match up so basically I don’t stand a chance, why not give Yang a shot.

I chose Yang during our sessions and I was trying to refresh my memory of controlling Yang and I can beat Snafoo’s Dhalsim without much trouble. It is rather an easy match up for Yang and I got Chi-Rithy to show me how to play the match up properly. Even though it was less than 20 mins of training session but I think I am ready since it’s a bad match up for Dhalsim, I think I got this.

I don’t think I have to explain or write about this match any further….watch this clip and you will see me dropping all my winning combos LOL.

There were so many rounds where I could have won, but I was confused myself about what I should do, LOL….and I was really upset when I dropped the launch after the command grab in the end..if that hit, connect to my U2, I would have won. Once again, I was really really upset about my performance, and there’s nothing I can do to change the fact that I got eliminated from the tournament.

I watched the whole singles tournament, didn’t feel as bad losing to Leslie no more. That guy was on drugs and just playing so well throughout the tournament winning against bad match ups and amazing players such as Wolfkrone (C.Viper) and Mago (Fei-Long). I was impressed and actually started rooting for him in my heart during grand finals. Too bad it was against Yun and it’s Kazunoko’s Yun…Leslie tried his best and I mean he still got second throughout the whole tournament, very impressive job he did especially with so many international killers in this tournament.

Alright, it is time to start the last part of the event, the international 5 v 5. We were not as confident as last day anymore because none of us won a match during top 32, LOL. We had to play against Team USA and had a strategy day before. 100% Floe will be the one up first and again we either send Riceata or Jozhear up first and they were both ready for Yang since they were practicing against Chi-Rithy’s Yang last night. So basically this was our strategy, Chi Rithy counter picks Champ+Wolfkrone, I take on Jwong+Wolfkrone, Snafoo -> Mike Ross and Jozhear + Riceata just take whoever they can (that’s why we put them up first.) Riceata went up first vs Floe and Riceata won, and then it was a really smart move for team USA putting Jwong up as second because he has a good chance beating all of us. (Riceata was eliminated by Jwong in the singles) and as expected Riceata lost. I didn’t want to go up as second knowing that I have the best chance of beating Jwong’s Rufus and I do know that if I lose, WE LOSE. However, nobody was confident enough in the team to beat Jwong, so I had to go up against him.

Jwong said he knew I had to go up against him to make our strategy work. I am guessing even if I win, they will have Champ to counter pick me, then we put Chi Rithy and if he wins they will put up Mike Ross (assuming he has a lot of Yang practice with Floe). If Mike wins, we will lose since Wolfkrone was their anchor and Viper can kill Vega + Dhalsim. I mean even if Mike Ross loses, it’s Wolfkrone and he is amazing under pressure so I think it was a pretty good gamble putting Jwong as second.

Basically before I got on the stage that’s what I was day dreaming (analyzing) about their strategy, but hey….didn’t even need to think ahead because our team got OCVed by Jwong. As I stated, once I lost, I knew it was over.

Next up we have team Korea and we didn’t have a solid strategy. We were only frightened by Infiltration’s Akuma, therefore we thought whoever goes up first, regardless win or lose we would still have a good chance of beating this team. I wanted to go first mainly due to my performance and I think Ryu is the worst one set character. I swear to god they will have Infiltration as anchor so putting myself up first was the best choice. Win or lose as first, we can still do counter picking with our team, thus, it was Laugh vs I. I was doing really well until the last round while I had 50% life lead…I remembered I tried doing low forward > fireball..and once again, instead of the Hadoken, SRK came out and that’s when Laugh made the comeback with combo > FADC > ultra and that’s how I lost. I was really salty…such a big disappointment I am, but I still did my captain’s job choosing who goes next. I wanted to save Chi-Rithy and Snafoo against Infiltration knowing that they are really familiar with the Akuma match up and as a result I picked Riceata since Ryu is his best match up. Riceata with a big surprise beating 3 players making team Korea left with Infiltration and Zzangmoo. Infiltration forced to go up because the match up is just way too hard for Zangief. Infiltration beat Riceata and Jozhear, but I knew we won already while Yang kills Akuma, even unluckily he loses, Snafoo can beat Akuma and Zangief without a doubt. Chi-Rithy was up, he beat Infiltration and Zzangmoo, however I wasn’t surpised because he did tell me that he is actually really good with the Zangief match up as Yang.

Next up we play against Team Japan 1 (Momochi, Tokido, Mago, Bonchan, Neurosis). I think this is actually the strongest team in the exhibition due to their characters and of course the players. Didn’t need to say more, we got OCVed by Neurosis and game over, we placed 4^th L. We were really hoping we can get third (we can get paid), but to be honest we were pretty happy with our result and performance (Snafoo and I didn’t do shit, LOL…we were the only two that didn’t beat a single dude during exhibiton -_-) while every team thought Canada was the weakest link according to the clip below. WE PROVED YOU GUYS WRONG!

Team Japan eLive won the whole thing……….so eLive owned the whole SSF4:AE tournament (or I should say Kazunoko did). Award ceremony happened right after the exhibition, blah blah blah, pictures and stuff…I can skip these. After ceremony was over, majority of us went to the afterhours @ Dicken’s. I took my chance to MM Leslie but nope…he’s too good with the match up, I went 0-3 against him though it was closer than I did at the tournament. I will run it back in ver.2012!!

$1k drinking+playing money match between Lap and Jwong @ Dicken's

Dicken’s was closed at around 3 am and we had to leave. I went to the money match room and stayed up until 7-8 am….I forgot..had a lot of fun even though I was dead tired. Very very fun event, glad I went and nice meeting all of you there!