A bunch of great games yesterday with Terrybogus and Kevin. I think I’m slowly learning how to play against Boxer. Doing Chun-li’s down-forward fierce kick swings around in an arc so that headbutt, dash punch, and most of his wakeup options miss. Throwing it out can also swing right around dash punch and most moves with forward hitting properties, but will obviously get hit by anti-airs that are early. I’m getting a little better at footsies, ranging and timing sweeps.  I do still need to work on good safe strings to use on block.

Basically played against only Ken and Sagat.  Lost to all the Kens, about half the Sagats.  Sagat matchup seems mainly about waiting just outside of sweep range and forcing mistakes. I just can’t ever jump, and need to always use the cross-up when they’re waking up.

I really need help playing against Ken, despite always being in this matchup, I really don’t know how to play against a reasonable one.  Anyone have pointers?

Played a bunch of Kens today, none of them very good.  Lost to one who played very conservatively, stayed away from wakeup shoryu, and ended up just getting nickel and dimed for damage.  Lost also to one Akuma who wasn’t that good, just used demon throw to mix up, and fireball to keep away. Beat 4 or 5 other ones.

Got randomly matched with a guy on my friends list, played maybe 3-4 matches against his Sagat, all of which came down to the last bit of health in the 3rd round.  I need a better handle on how much chip damage super/ultra will do, it might have helped.  He was pretty sparse with the fireballs, but hit the standing roundhouse into tiger knee/ultra every time.  I have a sneaking suspicion that jump-in roundhouse will beat it, need to double check.  Lost to a decent Claw player mainly because he never did anything especially unsafe, and I had no idea what to do against
those walljump throws.

Since switching mains, I’ve been looking for some high level Chun players. I haven’t really been following many vids from Japan (or the US, from that matter), but I figure anyone who can take a round against Daigo is worth paying attention to. He loses both rounds at least partly due to that Ryu FADC Ultra cancel, which is too good. Daigo says he doesn’t really know the matchup, but frankly, that setup is the ultimate equalizer: psychic shoryu + Dhalsim effect + Ultra = WIN.

[MP4]

I haven’t been updating as often as I should, but most of the basic formatting things should be out of the way. Today I played about 10 matches on Live, most of which I won. An Akuma played a very collected distance game that was a tough defense to crack (he ended up winning barely). Watching some Japanese National Tournament matches also made me think that what reminds me most about ST in SF4 is the way some matches, you’ll only have one opportunity to win, and you need to seize it.

• EX Spinning Bird against Claw. Not a free pass, still needs to be timed well.
• Abuse long range Chun sweep against Boxer. Works until they start EX Dash Punching/FA
• Predicting Boxer headbutt and Dash Punch with cross-up kick works great, not so much against jab Shoryuken

From what I can tell, Honda is a matchup where Chun has advantage, whereas Guile is a matchup I really don’t know.

The match I watched today I’m posting below. Really solid conservative Dhalsim, not risky or flashy at all (very Japanese, maybe? =) This illustrates what I mean about needing to capitalize on every opportunity, even more than in 3S.

[MP4]

Got another great session at Terrybogus’ place, ended up switching to Chun.  Hope I’m not betraying my principles, but I need a solid character to learn the game with, and I really like her in this iteration, so I think she’s going to be my main from now on.  Playing the range/distance game is in some ways not as good as in 3S, in others it’s better.  Thankfully, her entire strategy is no longer about hit confirming into super, not that there’s anything wrong with that, but 3S can sometimes get a little degenerate.  Learning the properties of her super/ultra is interesting.  I need to pick up some frame data to find out what is ultra-punishable, because it seems like almost everything can be punished via super.  She does take damage, but I think she’s a lot more viable than Cammy.  Once I get more familiar at the SF4 system, I’ll probably have a better handle on how to more creatively play characters that don’t already have their own play style orthodoxy set in the community.

So I went to Terrybogus’ place and played SFIV with the Maryland crew for a few hours, and got pretty well owned by everyone. Cammy is a really, really, hard character to play, and I hit every jab Cannon Spike and Hooligan, but I was hurting for lack of better combos and setups. Ryu worked me over with that Ultra setup, and a rushdown Sakura is hard to beat.

• Ryu does not lack for super and ultra setups, beware footsies that will turn into shoryu->FADC
• Rose’s Ultra SHAM WOW is bulletproof anti-air
• Find frame data for Sakura, a lot of that shit is safe, but not all of it can be
• Gouken having a really simple Ultra setup makes him that much better
• Get into habit of using c.mp instead of shoto c.mk

Great games, learned more in those hours than in days of XBLA play (as expected), and I look forward to playing again.  Might miss it next week, due to birthday and RE5, but need more sessions like this.

Played a fairly keepaway Dictator today on XBLA.  He used repeated headstomp mixups, some faked to keep me guessing.  A missed sweep slide I can punish with a l.mk->spiral arrow at the very least.  I already know weak Cannon Spike will hit out of Psycho Crusher

• Will Super/Ultra hit him out of Psycho Crusher? I think answer is yes.

Also, timing is the key against Gief.  He did EX charge forward grab move, and I did a Spiral Arrow which broke the first hit.  I think it has to do with when in the animation it hits him, but the grab hit sometimes, and sometimes whiffed and I threw him afterwards.  Need to better investigate against a hard Gief player.  Is the answer lots of weak Cannon Spikes to out-prioritize him?

There was a Claw player called Tru Down South or something who played a real distance game.  He just ran and backflipped all day and did ambiguous cross up dives from across the screen.  Getting the right angle Cannon Spike was hard all the time, and if he was ahead on life, punishing was not narrowing the gap enough.