Street Fighter IV Gamestop Tournament Round 3 - Halethorpe, MD

This weekend I met up with a friend I play on X-Box Live who is located in Maryland, specifically so that we could both travel to Round 3 of the Gamestop Street Fighter IV tournament. He was kind enough to give me the lay of the land in that particular part of Maryland, though I’m not sure I’ll be able to take advantage of it in the future. A story for another time. I arrived at his home at around 11:16am, we talked over a few trivialities and I had a few warm up rounds before heading to the tournament location around 12:30pm.

When we arrived at the store, there was a video game music cover band tuning/warming up outside. They would be neglected for the better part of the day and they packed up rather quickly after the event ended. I imagine they were told to show up to spruce up the event, though that’s a rather meaningless gesture given the overall setup of the store and tournament. Specifically it being small and crammed with 32 people concerned with getting a free 150 dollar arcade stick and a free trip to San Fransisco. I liked their rendition of Mega Man music, though I’m not sure vg cover music is something I can really appreciate these days.

Walking past them, I located the tournament organizer/store manager and got the details of the tournament. The only important information obtained, other than the start time speculated as being about half an hour later than the scheduled time of 2:00pm, was that the tournament was going to be played on the 360 pad. With a feeling of disgust in the face of that prospect, I just resigned myself to the fact that I’d have to do my best. I had played on an arcade stick for the past 2 weeks. That was “I’m a sucker” moment number 1 for the day. After we were told there would be catered food was when “I’m a sucker: Part 2″ quickly debuted.

The sequel was better than the original in this case.

George and I decided to eat right away rather than wait for the catering, so we chilled for a bit and ate at some cheap joint that sold basket fries. I was a bit too trusting there, and ordered some chipotle chicken wrap that was cold and undercooked. I didn’t bother finished all of the fries that had spilled at the bottom of the cheap, brown paper bag that held our meals. I’m sure his burger was better than what I had, but that doesn’t mean shit, as I still wished I ate at the Quizno’s right next to the place after my stomach told me not even 10 minutes after the fact that that food I willingly ingested was nasty.

God, I’m a sucker. :/

While we were eating at that place, the video game cover band began playing outside of the Gamestop. They opened up with Ken’s theme, which sparked some nerd idea in my head that Ken is some kind of false messiah for certain Street Fighter players in America. I imagine there are some players who consult the flowchart as if it were religious text. The use of other character akin to some form of heresy, punishable by burning at the stake. And what better way to light someone on fire than through the use of Ken’s arm igniting shoryuken?

“Believe in the fiery arm of Ken AND YOU SHALL HAVE YOUR SALVATION!”

*EX Headstomp*

Playa F still kicks my ass with Ken online, so this is all some huge form of irony. Ever been hit by a flaming dragon punch? It hurts, I assure you.

With the music playing, the time was about 1:58pm if I recall correctly. I decided it was time to head back into the store and see if things were about to get rolling. I didn’t mention this earlier, but the store was fairly empty when we arrived, save for a goofy guy in a green headband playing some games on the 360 kiosk. When I stepped back into the store, it was packed with nerds of all ages, shapes, and sizes. I think what shocked me the most was actually seeing significant others attending with the all male player turn out. It probably shouldn’t have, given what I know of the scene and what I know of people. Still, seeing 2 young children about the age of 3 scurrying about combined with my being over six feet tall in a crowded store is always uncomfortable for me. I was worried I’d step on or into one of them at some point and incur the wrath of Rising Mother Fist.

With things crowded as they were, the manager began collecting the round 2 certificates we had won in order to slot all of the participants into the bracket. Most tournaments use a computer program to accomplish this task, a luxury not available during this event. The organizer had to write all of our names down by reading them off the backs of our Round 2 qualifying certificates. Given that was one of a few pieces of information supposedly required to be written on the back of our qualifying certificates, I wasn’t too surprised to see that apparently most Gamestops missed the memo on that. The store managers many of us dealt with clearly didn’t know this, including the location I attended.

Given that my own certificate was blank along with many others, a good 10-15 minutes were spent having players write down their names, addresses, and phone numbers on these certificates and then wait to have them re-written on yellow stickers to be tossed around inside of a Gamecube box and placed on the giant store bracket. The manager did not have any experience running an actual tournament, so the whole event was quite a clusterfuck. The assistant manager re-read the rules that were posted on the tournament website while we all waited for the bracket to be slotted. Rivetting stuff, I assure you. Speaking of this, I caught sight of a “community representative” that Mr. Wizard of SRK spoke of. He was in the act of trying to assist in the bracket preparation. I don’t know what they helped with specifically, or what advice they offered that might have actually been taken, but their input apparently didn’t mean anything in relation to the bracket, because one side ended up being shorter than the other.

That would be the bracket I was placed in. The first seed, just like round 2. I wish I had pictures, because it looked pretty goofy.

As far as the bracket being uneven, this was when the day’s drama began. Two Round 2 Qualifiers, Renegade and Ski from SRK, arrived about 7 minutes “late.” I put “late” in quotation marks because the tournament hadn’t even started yet, the brackets had not been completely slotted and we were all still waiting to play. The tournament organizer/store manager first asked us all if we wanted to allow Renegade and Ski to play in the tournament. Most of the crowd was ambivalent to this, though I did raise my hand in favor of these two participating. After that question, he asked who didn’t want to allow the two to play in the tournament. Moreover, he stated that in either case, the result had to be a “unanimous decision.” Two of the participants decided to say “no”, as if it would increase their odds of winning the tournament. They ended up losing both of their respective first matches.

Again, folks were mostly ambivalent to the situation, while a few people who knew Ski and Renegade were vocally pleading for common sense based on the status of the brackets. Of course, those pleas fell on deaf ears. I’m really not sure what to make of the situation, specifically regarding my sympathy, as there’s something interesting I will bring up in a later entry, specifically related to these two individuals who were denied the priveledge of playing in Round 3 and the tournament I attended the day following Gamestop’s.

All of that was pretty stupid and petty, but in hindsight, I can only say that the manager was doing his job and performing his job the best way he knew. I wish he would have sided with the experience of the players/participants, but that’s the way these kind of things seem to go in life. Very rarely do these circumstances not result in frustration. I had read that there was apparently a conference call between some higher ups of Gamestop related to the tournament where the situation was discussed at length. I can only imagine how the conversation went, considering there are many factors that could have affected the discussion. I can only assume the worse, given I don’t know enough about the inner workings of Gamestop tournaments and company policy.

I’ve said it before, but it bears repeating: Gamestop sells video games. Any illusions that they are skilled in anything other than how they make money is going to result in disappointment.

So, even in the midst of that drama, there was still a 32 person showing at Halethorpe, MD. Aside from the inexperience of the manager/tournament organizer, I did my best and had some good matches. The format was, once again, single elimination/best of 5 rounds. I eliminated an unskilled Sagat player at the beginning, losing one round because I just wasn’t executing on the 360 pad. I counted 7 times in the round that I lost where I just jumped straight into the air instead of performing Devil’s Reverse with M.Bison. I knew I was in trouble the instant I had to start spamming headstomp. My second match had me facing a Zangief player in a battle that went down to the wire in the fifth and final round. As M.Bison in Street Fighter IV, a match with Zangief is an uphill battle that can easily be ended when Zangief scores a knockdown and begins a scary mix up of throws and body splash cross ups. It’s easy to find yourself dizzied or just plain KO’d by Zangief’s powerful throws and stupidly good lariat, combined with having to guess what the opponent is looking to do to you as you try and get up off the ground. In the end, the player didn’t know how to deal with my Devil’s Reverse and run away game, and I won the match by “Time Over” in the final round.

My third match before the finals had me up against a Blanka player. He told me that he didn’t want to fight my Bison, and I managed to win the set against him. I was running well enough through the event, though we began the finals almost immediately after that match was over. I fought Eric “Ramza” Kim, and lost to his Sagat. I managed to win the first round against him, but from there I was just swept clean. I couldn’t execute and ended up committing several bad decisions after he got in my head and just neutralized my two dimensional Headstomp/Devil’s Reverse game with well placed Focus Attacks. I was beaten before the match had ended, as I kept doing the same thing over and over.

I can’t deny that I don’t feel any disappointment about my run in the Gamestop Tournament. Questions like “Maybe I should have gone to North Carolina?” or “Maybe if I practiced on pad?” are still tearing me up inside. I even wondered if Ramza just gave me the first round to size me up. Even with demons in the form of those questions haunting me, I feel no shame in saying that Eric won and I lost. He was and is the better player. I hope he can take it all the way in the Finals. You know, without having to play on this stupid 360 pad.

While we’re both looking at different cameras, you can easily tell that I’m a bit shaken up over the end result. I was completely fucked up mentally at the end. How could I not be? Still, I’m looking forward to future competitions/opportunities to win in a tournament such as this. It was a good experience and the start of my realizing what it takes to compete firsthand.

Good luck to Eric Kim, and all participants in the Final Round!