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Entries in tournaments (398)

Monday
Jun222009

NORCAL'S FUDDRUCKERS PRE-EVO STREET FIGHTER TOURNAMENT!


PRE-REGISTER HERE

 

It's that time again. Norcal's largest monthly tournament is back, and as the flyer says, it just got hella bigger! First of all, the tournament IS NOT capped at 128 people, so everyone who makes it to the event will be able to participate. Anyone who has the availability to attend should go to this event for the following reasons:

  • Ricky Ortiz, LPN, Haunts, John Choi, Magus1234, Tharimrattler, A-Rival, old school legend Graham Wolfe, 1up's Richard Li (the only game journalist who is good at fighters), Coopa, Young Legend, Crizzle, Chunksta, myself and many other top players will be in attendance.
  • $10 entry fee. Hence, if 150 people joined, the total pot would be $1,500!
  • John Choi will be looking for candidates for the EVO Regional Exhibition 5v5 for HD Remix/SF4
  • Many travelers from all over and outside of California will be attending this event, and rumor has it that Jason Cole is possibly attending this event! You never know what big names may show up, so take a chance and come by!
  • The Red Bull Girls will be back in action passing out Red Bulls!
  • EVO is the next major event after Fuddruckers, so this is your final chance to prove your worth before competing on the big stage!

There's nothing to lose and so much to gain. Can you prove your worth and shut down the recent placers of NorCal's finest tournament? With that being said, I recommend everyone attending to pre-register for the tournament by clicking on the link. Till then, here's the trailer created by iPlayWinner crew member, Farid Rouya (Eph). LET'S GET HYPE!

Saturday
Jun132009

So Fashionable! So Fabulous! So Lb!

[ This is a follow up post to the UCD Team Tournament post. ]

"LB made being gay fashionable." - Jeff Tanaka.

I could tell. Not only had a string of pseudo-homoerotic jokes come during his stay at Davis, they stayed after he left. In a sense, LB has made his mark. Oh, god. Not again. No homo. A week before today was the Davis team tourney--the first Davis team tourney. The hometown peeps were still unsure of what to expect and with the SBO qualifiers on the same day, it wouldn't be logical to expect a big turnout. Logic: that word sure went to hell and back.

So, where's Davis?

To everyone who doesn't know Davis, don't feel bad. It's a small, agriculturally-based town between Saramento and San Francisco (it's just 30 minutes away from Sacramento). The life of the town revolves around the college campus, or UC Davis. There's not much else to say. The food's great, since it comes directly from the area around us. The nights are boring unless you are 21 and over (the bars always seem lively). It's a college town, but whenever I ask residents what they do for fun, they usually say, "Go to Sacramento." Funny thing: when I ask Sacramento people what they do, they say, "Go to San Francisco." I've yet to ask what San Francisco people do.

Click to read!

6/1/09, the Monday before the tourney:

It was early in the morning and for some reason or another, I messaged LB about Japanese styled clothing. At this point, I still thought he was Japanese. I mean, Hyung Lee. That's clearly Japanese, right? Anyway, I keep talking to Daigo, I mean, LB, and the conversation starts tangenting from clothing to calling him Dadigo: "Okay want to make a bet?" I tell him. "I will call you Dadigo several times at the next tourney, so people can hear it. We're both going to get weird looks." LB responds, "You will get weird looks. I will get a look of awe." And then an idea popped up: "But I sure as hell won't call you Dadigo unless you beat me in a money match."

And so the idea was born. We continued discussing the idea and it evolved into this, my initial post on the SRK PacNorth Forums:

I'm calling you out on a money match for skipping out on the interview at Fuddruckers. Here are the terms, you fake:
1) 100$ on the line.
2) We play at the Davis tourney this Saturday in SF4.
3) If I win, you got to answer as many stupid questions as I have for you in an interview AND you cry on camera, got that?
4) First to 5 matches. Round will consist of best of 3.
5) Loser has to call the winner "Daddy" or "Dadigo", if I lose.
6) If I lose, I got to drink two bottles of Soju during the tournament (first one has to go down immediately.

 [ Read the full SRK PacNorth thread here. ]

Staged drama. But it wasn't enough. It had to be more serious, so LB suggested I post out "logical" reasons for my hatred, and so I did. More and more people began to ask us if this was real. LB kept his part of the deal and affirmed it. I, on the other hand, had to let a few people know for added hype.

Click to read more ...

Thursday
Jun112009

THE GRIND: SOCAL EDITION (SF4 TRAINING & SBO QUALS)

"Hey, you're Haunts right? Welcome to SoCal... Man, I've never been so nervous for a tournament as I am today.." says Mike Ross as I am checking out all the equipment for the SBO Quals live stream.

"Yeah, it should be pretty crazy..." I say casually, not knowing that this will be one of the most intense tournaments of my Street Fighter career.

THE GRIND

Rewind three weeks, I approach MAGUS1234 , NorCal's best C. Viper player, asking him to go to SoCal with me for a week and three days to level up in Street Fighter, possibly check out E3 and gather content for iPlayWinner. Just a few days prior to that we discussed competing in SBO Quals to try to win a free ticket to Japan anyway, so after thinking it over for a week or so, he finally contacts me and says "Yeah man, lets do this, it will be a grind but sometimes you just have to do it."

What is The Grind you ask? Well, like in any RPG game there is always the need to grind it out, have a ton of battles in high level areas to gain EXP points and level up. Whether people realise it or not, this is required in Street Fighter as well if you expect to be a decent player. Except unlike video games, when and where you level up, and the reasoning behind it isn't as simple as rising two digit numbers. Really, you are the main character and all these battles take place at actual locations like Keystone, Denjin Arcade, Arcade Infinity, EVO and all the other random dungeons you may encounter along the way.

This was more or less our thought process for going to SoCal: MAGUS1234 and I felt we needed to seek out other styles to take our game to the next level.

Click to read more ...

Monday
Jun082009

UCD's First Team Tourney

First off, thank you to iPlayWinner's cameraman, thxyoutoo, for recording and providing video coverage of the tourney. The turnout was the biggest Davis has ever had with 18 teams (54 people) and a pot of $214.20 going to first place!

Results are:

1 Jewish Coopa Force (Andrew [Bison], Tanaka [Ryu], and Coopa [Zangief])
2 NME (Mark [Sagat], FilipinoChamp [Dhalsim], and James/Taunt [Rufus])
3 Choi-C-V (Eric Choi [Rufus], Crizzle [Zangief], and Kyle [Ken])

Click to read more ...

Wednesday
May272009

IPLAYWINNER.COM INVADES FANIME!

"Try this on for size!" A handsome man in his early thirties put on his best Ken impression and took the stage. Or, he would have taken the stage if it weren’t for a crew of six individuals, all ready to defame this impersonator. One of these individuals, a haughty Asian man in J-pop clothing, had a plan. He called for the easy button, and so it was set: Operation Make Voice Actor Look Silly.

Flash back to twenty minutes prior to this event and I'm here in front of this booth, signing my name on a sheet unbeknownst to the rest. A sheet so small--so hidden, that I couldn't possibly lose. I bid 20 dollars to face the voice actor of Ken Masters: Reuben Langdon.

"He's not really Ken Masters. Just a voice actor." Now, we’re back in present time, and I’m here out of a crew that bid from a max of 115 dollars to a low of twenty (mine). We get called one by one and show them, best out of three matches, how Street Fighter 4 should be played. Taunts ensued, ideals pursued, Youtube approved:

With a little gas, a little practice, and a lot of luck, maybe you can fight the next famous voice actor! A shout out to Mr. Langdon for doing this for charity and his good sportsmanship. Also, thank you to Milkiseph, Ninjai, and nussliw for providing the videos! Look forward to Crackfiend’s podcast with Mr. Langdon later! To learn more about the charity and Mr. Langdon, go here to see his blog on Fanime.


If you're not familiar with Fanime, it's an annual anime convention located in the heart of San Jose. Every year, it is held “for the fans, by the fans” and it continued this tradition onto 2009. Sure, fans are wild and things do get occasionally awkward, but if Fanime has anything right, it’s that the very thing that repels people away is what brings them in. Yes, that’s right. This love/hate relationship with the fans is what does it, at least for me. You never know if you might meet the scariest stalker or the coolest cat (both of which I met).

[Big thanks to Dave Treakle for the photos, check out his Flickr!]

Arcades from around the area brought life to the E-gaming room.  Fighters like Tekken 6, Blaz Blue, Third Strike, Marvel vs Capcom 2, and, of course, Street Fighter 4 were readily available and played. Even if you weren't a big fan of fighters, there were consoles that could be played free of charge and other arcade classics like Dance Dance Revolution and Para Para to play. And if that's not enough, then the tournaments might just be for you. The Street Fighter 4 tournament (sponsored by Play N' Trade) had a turnout of 102 players and even players like Scunsion could make it!

Enclosed here are a few interviews I got with the players Ninjai (a participant in the event with Mr. Langdon) and LPN (a competitor in the Fanime Street Fighter 4 tournament):

Coopa: How long have you been playing Street Fighter 4?

Ninjia: Since it came out in the US. My friend and I didn't reserve it, so we went all around San Jose to look for a free copy. We went to Gamestop, Play N' Trade, GameCrazy, Target, even Toys R' Us. Most of them said they were gonna get their shipment in tomorrow, which was kind of weird since it was supposed to be out THAT day. But we went to a GameCrazy back on Blossom Hill and they had leftovers...so we got lucky.

Click to read more ...

Thursday
May212009

UC DAVIS MUGA STREET FIGHTER 4 TOURNAMENT RECAP!

Last weekend, there were 3 tournaments (it's like that every weekend in NorCal now!), but the recap will be specifically about the UC Davis MUGA tournament that happened on Saturday. The tournament had a total of 48 entrants, and was full of surprises and upsets. That seems to be the running theme for Street Fighter 4 tournaments these days!



The first name worth mentioning is the up and coming Sagat player, Mark (Tharimrattler). Although he made a name for himself by beasting in Marvel with Colossus, from what I've been told, this cat practices Street Fighter 4 HARDCORE and it's his game of choice now. He also attends weekly tournaments in Suisun, CA and consistently places in the top 3.

All that practice and hardwork paid off in that he placed 1st at the MUGA tournament, sweeping me (Crackfiend) in the finals. This was another reminder that people are very hungry to take the #1 spot in SF4 these days, and playing his Sagat was a humbling experience to say the least.

Check out the match below! (More videos of the tournament at thnxyoutoo's YouTube channel)


Another name worth mentioning is Ryu player KOREA who eliminated me from the winners bracket with straight up GIMMICKS! He definitely got the best of me in the match with his unorthodox style of play and here is is an example: he does an uppercut to knock me down, whiffs a throw twice, and does it a third time to throw me! WHAT!? I was a sitting duck for gimmicks and could not figure out what was going on inside his mind! Oh well, good job KOREA!


The highlight of the day had to be Coopa vs Mark, in one of the closest finals I've seen so far in Street Fighter 4. It's one of those matches I just can't describe in words, you've got to see it for yourself!



Street Fighter 4
1. Tharimrattler (Sagat)
2. Crackfiend (Barlog)
3. Coopa (Zangief)

Click to read more ...

Wednesday
May132009

STREET FIGHTER 4 TOURNAMENTS AND EVENTS FOR NORCAL IN MAY!

Picture by Matelandia at Deviant Art 

The month of May is going to a busy month. Here's the current schedule of events that I know of so far in my calendar:

May 15th - Keystone III Ranbat (Ranking Battle)

Formerly known as the Cannery Dojo, Joshua (Owner of Cannery Dojo) and Albert (Owner of Keystone II) have teamed up to create Keystone III, and are now holding weekly Ranbats for the community.

May 16th - UC Davis Muga Street Fighter 4 Tournament

Way out in UC Davis holds a monthly tournament featuring upcoming players such as Matt (Pieguy) and Sean H. (Coopa) who are hungry to take the throne and mark themselves as one of the top competitors in NorCal.

Click to read more ...

Friday
May012009

STREET FIGHTER 4 STRATEGY CONCEPTS: THE BATTLE FOR DISTANCE

I've decided to create a series of articles called "Street Fighter 4 Strategy Concepts" which is a comparison/correlation of concepts between Street Fighter video games and sports. Before I go on, I would like to share a story about myself and the competitive scene.

I had previously hated video games, period. I thought it was a waste of time and you could do nothing productive with it other than kill time. I was also a very big sports guy, and I played basketball throughout most of high school until I suffered some knee injuries which caused me to stop playing. While in my first year of college in fall of 2002, I stumbled upon Marvel vs Capcom 2 and I met some people from SRK (www.shoryuken.com). The competitive nature and diversity of the crowd really drew me in which eliminated most, if not, all stereotypes of video gamers. 7 years later, here I am telling a short story about how a non-video gamer became a video gamer, but not without cause.

The reason I mentioned this is because I use a lot of my basketball fundamentals to my gameplay and style. I also watch and learn other sports in order to use their strategies and concepts in my matches as well. Today's topic will be the battle for distance. Below this paragraph is a video of me and Ricky Ortiz playing at the SFSU arcade. I'm going to break down 3 sections in which spacing is highly involved in top play.



2:05 - I begin getting Ricky to the corner by making him block dash punches and my sweeps. By having the right spacing for my moves, I'm able to cause Ricky to misjudge some of my attacks which allows me to dash punch in and then weave out by dashing back (This is a stategical technique that I like to call in-n-out), then moving forward a little bit to continue to steadily work him in.

Click to read more ...

Monday
Apr272009

FUDDRUCKERS TOURNAMENT: STREET FIGHTER 4 VIDEO TEASER

Here's a quickie on yesterday's tournament: LPN vs Ricky Ortiz



Some of you guys may have skipped the video and just went on to continue reading this article. If you did, watch it right after you read the article. Let me tell you two things that happened yesterday:

First off, we had to cap off the tournament entries at 128, and people still wanted to join the tournament. Here's how bad it got - people were selling off their spots for $20, and we had probably 5 - 10 spots sold (Entry fee was $5).

Second of all, Ricky Ortiz was one of the guys who bought a spot in order to get into the tournament, and in the match between him and LPN, there was a lot of side betting going on. To make things simple and short, there was at least $300 involved for the total pot. How much more hype can it get? Stay tuned for the full article when we post it this week!

Monday
Apr272009

WORLD CYBER GAMES FIGHTER CLUB RESULTS

WCG Fighter Club wrapped up this weekend in New York with Justin Wong taking another first place victory- this time with Abel! Almost more interesting is the fact that Arturo "Sabin" Sanchez took 2nd using Seth, who was originally banned from the tournament until the players spoke out against it.

Here are the Grand Finals with J. Wong and Sabin. Check the full YouTube channel for more videos from the event!

Here is Top 8 - check the SRK results thread for more information.

1- Jwong - Abel, Rufus
2- Sabin - Sim/Seth
3- Nestor - Sagat
4- Joe - Sagat
5- Sanford - Ken
5- Rashaan Sim/Viper
7- NerdJosh - Sagat
7- Fascinating - Ryu

Thursday
Apr232009

STREET FIGHTER 4 TOURNAMENT WEEKEND WRAP UP!

This last weekend has been filled with plenty of events and festivities, and finally I've got some time to do a quick breakdown of everything that's been going on. To start this off, let's begin with the overview of the UC Davis Muga Tournament.

The "Muga" is the name of the arcade at the University, and we had a total of 35 entries for the tournament. I gotta tell you, the Top 8 matches started getting pretty intense. Coopa, the UC Davis Zangrief player, is just hands down a beast. The man specializes in gimmicks (he has openly admitted to it), but will showcase some very impressive footsies/ground games to complement his game, allowing him to create more opportunities because you have to respect his game. See the vid of him taking me out from Winners Finals

Click to read more ...

Wednesday
Apr222009

JAPANESE NATIONAL CHAMPION IYO INTERVIEW

At the Street Fighter 4 Nationals tournament not only did we have a chance to interview Daigo, but we also asked a couple questions to Iyo who is currently the Japanese National Champion.

One important thing to note about this interview is his transition from CVS2 to Street Fighter 4. Essentially he was not very good at the game when he first started playing, but through the support of his friends and other players he was able to become much better at it. Considering this guy is the National Champion this says a lot about getting out there, finding people who are better than you who can coach you and help you get better!

Like the Daigo interview, it's hard to hear everything due to all the noise in the venue so we included a transcript of the whole interview below the video. Check it out!


Haunts Question 1:

Do you play on XBOX live at all or do you only play in the arcade?

Iyo/Shino Answer: He sometimes plays on Xbox Live.

Haunts Question 2: Can you still find good competition on there like in the arcade or is it just for fun?

Iyo/Shino Answer: There are many players out there on XBOX live so he can compete against so many players on there so it is comparable to playing in the arcade.

Click to read more ...

Wednesday
Apr152009

WEEKEND TOURNAMENT WRAP-UP

The battles in the Bay continue with a tournament every weekend in the month of April!

This past weekend San Francisco State University's Rack-N-Cue arcade held a tournament for Street Fighter 4, Street Fighter III: 3s, Capcom vs. SNK 2, Tekken 6: BR and Marvel VS Capcom 2. Players all the way from Davis to San Jose California showed up for Street Fighter 4, making it the main attraction with 40 total entrants - almost double what the other games saw.

Although the tournament started a bit slow with very little hype and many people getting used to the stiff P360 joysticks and unfamiliar set up, by the time it got to top 8 we saw some very intense matches with people yelling and screaming as rounds came down to the last hit. With so many of the players becoming so serious about the game, this tournament was a true testament to the fact that right now anyone can beat anyone in Street Fighter 4. Almost each and every match could have gone either way.

As you'll see the iPlayWinner.com crew had a very solid showing taking 4 out of the top 8 spots with our very own Crackfiend taking 1st place!

Street Fighter 4:

1.Crackfiend - Boxer - (sent to losers bracket by Ricky)
2. Ricky Ortiz - Chun Li - (Lost to Crackfiend 2x)
3. Young Legend - Ryu - (Lost to Crackfiend and Ricky Ortiz)
4. Jack - Ryu - (Lost to Crackfiend and ???)
5. Jeff - Rufus - (Lost to ???)
5. A-Rival - Chun Li - (Lost to Crackfiend 2x)
7. Haunts (Lost to Nick and Jack)
7.Coopa (Lost to A-Rival and ???)

Both Jack who plays a solid Ryu and Coopa who plays a very entertaining Zangief (for real this guy is awesome to watch play - very animated and friendly dude. Thanks for recording the vids!) who came all the way from Davis, CA placed in the top 8. To my knowledge this is Jack's 2nd or 3rd top 8 placement in the past month alone so watch out for this guy.

Some hard fought battles from A_Rival who used Chun-Li through out the entire tournament to take people out; Jeff who is mainly a Tekken player who made his way to top 8 with a mix of Zangief and Rufus; and of course you'll see I placed somewhere there in too, sticking with Sagat through out the entire tournament.

Young Legend placing top 3 as usual with his extremely solid Ryu, only peaced out by Ricky Ortiz and Crackfiend. For those of you who don't know, Young Legend is only 15 years old and is already one of the best Street Fighter players around. This was a reminder that although he has the skills he still has a ways to go to take out the guys who have been around for a while! Can't teach that experience!

The Grand Finals between Ricky Ortiz (who got either 1st or 2nd in every other game at the tournament!) and Crackfiend had to be the best display of skill throughout the entire tournament - both players feeling each other out through out the entire two sets, playing very solid footsie and zoning games. With Crackfiend losing earlier in the tournament to Ricky sending him to the losers bracket, he had to beat Ricky twice to take the number one spot. A lot of hard work but he did it due to his solid execution and mind games with Balrog!

All in all it was a great event with a ton of new faces reminding us that there is an entire new group of players who are hungry to get better in this game!

Here is top 8 for all the other games:

Click to read more ...

Tuesday
Mar102009

SF BAY AREA TOURNAMENT - MARCH 22nd - SF4 / TVC / MVC2 / 3S / HD:R

All you Bay Area fighting game heads who are looking to flex your skills in some new games and...eat some burgers in the process, check out the Fuddruckers Fighting Game Tournament on the 22nd of this month. Not only will it showcase the major games of days gone by such as Marvel and 3s, but they will of course have newer entries such as Street Fighter 4, HD Remix and even Tatsunoko vs Capcom as games that you can enter.

Each game is 5 bucks to enter and winner will net 70% of the pot. So if you think you have what it takes to get your share, head out to Concord CA later this month and prove it.

 

Check out the official thread on Shoryuken.com for more details!

Friday
Mar062009

STREET FIGHTER 4: Tokido Gets Beaten By a Girl

Haruna Anno is a Japanese swimsuit model and pin-up girl, also well known as a gamer.  She first came to the attention of most people when a video was posted of a television segment where she played through stage 1-1 of Super Mario Bros with her back to the TV.

 

She's also an avowed Street Fighter fan, and has cosplayed as Chun Li on occasion.  Her PS3 online SF4 record was 178 wins to 36 losses when she recently posted photos of her stats on her blog.  Recently she faced Tokido in Street Fighter 4, playing Zangief to great effect.

To all the ladies out there reading this, take this as a challenge and step up your game!

Tuesday
Jan202009

CALIFORNIA REGIONALS REVIEW

DENJIN ARCADECalifornia Regionals has come and gone over the weekend and I must say it was the most eye opening and enjoyable tournaments I've ever been to. Held at Denjin Arcade in Simi Valley CA, players from not only California but literally all over the world (Korea, Hawaii, Oregon, Arizona) showed up to flex their skills in virtually every 2D game that is still played to this day.

Over 4 months of Street Fighter IV training, a chance to play some of the best players in the country and take home the trophy in the Battle for California 5v5. There was a lot going through my mind as I made my trek out to Oakland Airport on BART. So many variables in an event like this, so many possible outcomes and really that is probably what keeps me coming back to tournaments like this year after year. Here is the 3 day break down of the event from my perspective.

Click to read more ...

Saturday
Jan172009

STREET FIGHTER CLUB SAN FRANCISCO: Event Review by Thrust07

While our main man Haunts is representing the Bay Area Street Fighter players at the California Regionals in Southern Cali, we had a great time here at Capcom's Street Fighter Club in San Francisco.

For four amazing Street Fighter-filled hours, Capcom's event staff threw an underground party at a location open only to those who RSVPed by special invite. The room was filled with a myriad of PS3s with matching HD TVs, each playing the latest version of Street Fighter IV, complete with its new edition of characters. There were even a few stations with Street Fighter HD Remix. The very fabulous Viewlix cabinets also made an appearance, while each PS3 was outfitted with all the new controllers from MadCatz. That's right, that includes the new MadCatz Standard and Tournament Edition Fight Sticks, as well as the Fight Pads and various HRAPs. They even had pizza and a (pretty good) live DJ.

Click to read more ...

Friday
Dec262008

CALIFORNIA REGIONALS, JAN. 17-18th AT DENJIN ARCADE

In the past, Northern California each year has held the NorCal Regionals Tournament to see who is the best in the Bay, but due to space and game restrictions it is not happening this year. The SoCal scene decided this would be a good opportunity to have an event where both NorCal and SoCal can battle it out to see who is the best in the state. So, come January 17th the top players in California will converge at Denjin Arcade in Simi Valley for the first annual California Regionals tournament.

The tournament will feature most major fighting games such as Street Fighter IV, Third Strike and even BlazBlue. There will be singles and team tournaments for all these games, but what will most likely be the highlight of the event is a special "5v5 Battle for California Tournament" where the top 5 players from each region for SF4, 3rd Strike, MvC2, CvS2, and ST will battle it out. I don't think any tournament until maybe  EVO2K9 can hope to be as hype as this!

Check out the official thread for the event on Shoryuken.com for more details, and after hearing about all this you're still not hype... well, I'll let Lil' Shoto take it from here:

 

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