Golden Week 2010: SBO quals begin

I dont really have a lot of time to type this so Im gonna keep this brief.

From the last blog post when I was drinking all those shots, I think it really messed with my ulcer cuz I had black feces again, which is a sign of internal bleeding. I felt tired all week too so I figured it would be best to avoid drinking this coming weekend. I had an enkai in the middle of the week and it was hurting after like only drinking for 3 hours.

So anyway, I went to Tokyo Friday night by myself, and I met Sam there. We got some Kebabs right away and then went back to Mikado. FAB was like coaching Ririko while she was playing for some reason. I played her in 4 games and we went 2 and 2. FAB was coaching her the whole time according to Sam. I have no idea why. I figured it was maybe cuz they were gonna team up but I found out later that this wasnt the case. Other than that, I ended some JO player 14 win streak and got 8 wins. Then I ended an Eddie 10 win streak. Nothing much else to note about casuals that I played that night.

Mikado now has like 5 3S machines. They also now have 10 GG AC machines which is pretty awsome. Also, they only have 2 Arcana 3 cabs but there were like 20 guys crowded around them that night.

After casuals, Emmet mailed me saying he was gonna come to Tokyo like last minute and wanted to go to Club Pure, which apparently has reopened again in Shibuya. I was sorta down to check it out but I was feeling REALLY tired and fatigued for like no reason so I figured it was related to the ulcer and possible internal bleeding thing so I went to Shibuya but told Emmet that I was just gonna go to sleep after all. He ended up just going to Current instead as a result. I went to the manga kissa in Shibuya and got a lot of sleep.

The next day I played casuals at Mikado all day again. Lots of top players were there. I beat Limekey twice which was nice but I lost to him a lot too. I got a lot of good training in today. I got Kebabs and Ramen at some point with Emmet and Sam. I ended up staying till closing and then I just went back to Shinjuku to go sleep. I looked at lots of manga kissas to try to get a nice mat room cuz I wanted to rest well since I was really tired again, but all the nice ones were full so I just stayed at the usual one. Even if I was feeling well today, I wouldnt go drinking because the next morning was the very first GG SBO qual in Saitama. The place wasnt very far (Urawa), but the registration started at 10 am and they capped it at 16 teams, meaning I needed to get there really early.

Anyway the next day, I woke up and took the train to Urawa. After walking a little I found the arcade (Hap-1 UNO). There were already several players there (almost all of them were top players I know) waiting to register. After I registered my team (which was me, Kunihiro (AN), and Nanase (AB)), I pretty much just stayed there and played casuals all day. The tournament wasnt scheduled to start till 4 pm so I had a lot of time to kill. They only had one cab unfortunately, but at least there werent that many people playing on it since most teams left. I mostly played against these 3 guys who were all on the same team (CH, RO, TE). I dont know their names, but I was beating them all pretty consistantly and only lost to the CH and RO once out of several games and went undefeated vs the TE. Udei was also there and was using his Testament. He was getting the most wins, but I still was beating him a good amount of the time.

At 2 pm, they moved the cab to a stage area with seats in front and big screen connected for watching during the tournament, so during that time there were no casuals. Also, around this time, my teammates showed up.

Surprisingly enough, only 9 teams entered, so I went there all early for nothing, but I guess the practice matches were good so whatever.

Some teams were
AGF/Taku/HEVEN
Inoue/FAB/Machaboo
Hase/Udei/some Robo-ky
Mitsurugi/that really good default color Millia ive talked about before/Pink Faust whos good
Kuni/crazy good Footsies Ky/some pink May

....and a few others

Our first match was vs the RO/CH/TE team that I was beating up all morning. Nanase wanted to go first so we let him go and he OCVed them with his AB. The next match was the semi finals already and we had to fight Machaboo(TE)/FAB(PO)/Inoue(OR). This team is a little broken. Machaboo plays TE as his main now, and his TE is fucking sick. Kunihiro went first this time, fallowed by Nanase, and then e... and we all got OCVed by Machaboo's TE. The finals were Machaboo team vs Taku(SL)/AGF(AN)/HEVEN(VE).
It went down like this. HEVEN beat Machaboo, Inoue beat HEVEN, then Taku beat Inoue and FAB. Taku's team won and won the preliminary.

After that, they had free play going for a bit and whoever could just jump on and get a quick match in. I played Udei and won. Then later I fought AGF and lost by a pixel. Most people started to clear out so I left too and headed back to Mikado.

At Mikado, a lot of the players from the qual came to play as well as others. My teammates showed up too. I beat FAB on my 2nd try and ended his 17 win streak which felt pretty good. After Kunihiro left, he messaged me at like 11:30 saying he just found out he had to work tomorrow. My team for tomorrow was supposed to be Kunihiro and Honya (BA), but now that Kunihiro couldnt do it, I had no team. I asked around at Mikado but everyone there was busy or already had a team. All my phone contacts were also tapped out and espessially on such short notice there was nothing I could do. So, as a result I couldnt enter the qual the next day.

After Mikado closed I went back to Shinjuku. I had time to kill now so I figured I might as well go to Current for just a little. I stayed for just like 3 drinks. I felt a little tired but still OK. I only stayed till about 3. I wasnt very packed, but I was surprised that Kunko was there. She was talking with Taka and some other dude. She was in town for some concert. I told her I was sorry I forgot to contact her when I went to Kansai but she said she didnt tell me she was in Tokyo so looks like were even lol. I also talked to the staff and some older woman and older dude who were sitting at the bar near me. Shuji was there too but he passed out on the bar pretty fast. That dude is always tired.

After leaving Current, I pretty much just went to sleep a little early and got the 9 hour package at the manga kissa.

For Monday and Tuesday, there were more SBO quals, but I couldnt get a team because they were both really far and lots of people were busy and actually had work even during golden week. So I ended up just meeting Sam at Mikado and playing casuals all day. It was mostly scrubs there. I got a 20 win streak and was defeated by a May player eventually. Also, they had some weird event there where on the big projector, they were showing old ST matches and like freeze framing it and analyzing things like frame by frame and someone was explaining strategies and matchups and about 30 guys were chillin there watching this sorta matchup tutorial. Ive never seen an arcade do anything like this before. I didnt pay that much attention to it though cuz I was busy playing casuals and I dont play ST hardcore enough to really wanna sit and watch that over playing GG lol.

Since I had no chance of entering the quals, and didnt want to just go so far out there with no team at all, I decided I would just go home. Sam doesnt have a PS3 and wanted to play Super SFIV, so he went back to Gunma with me and stayed at my place and we pretty much played SSFIV from Monday night to Wednesday evening, pretty much stopping just to go to the store a couple times and eat and sleep. Andy came over on Tuesday and stayed all day too so we got a lot of casuals in. I am still in the process of learning T.Hawk. I still play Blanka too. I havnt really decided who will end up being my main yet but Ill stick with both of em and just see how it pans out.

Also, the start button on my stick broke but luckily I was able to fix it by replacing it with the select button from my other stick which I never really use anyway lol.

So yea, thats pretty much it. Not the best Golden Week ever but I had fun. This was probably the least amount of drinking I ever did in a weekend in Tokyo ever, and I was tired most of the time, but I played so many games that the callus on my left pointer finger from using arcade sticks so much has gotten like 2X harder than it was before. Also, by the end of the holiday weekend I was feeling much better and less tired, even after staying up till 5 am playing SF 2 nights in a row. Unfortunately I couldnt see Ryoko when I got back to Gunma cuz she was stuck working ALL of Golden Week doing double shifts every day cuz shes the manager and everyone else took days off.

Next weekend there will be 2 more quals. I am still in the process of forming teams but I should be able to manage getting something set up.