What makes this an interesting match is the clash of styles between oldschool Ryu and newschool Balrog. Clearly Valle has more experience in this match, which helps in the clutch.
players: P4P (Balrog-U1) vs Alex “CaliPower” Valle (Ryu-U1)
observations:
At 1:46, one of the commentators says that Valle is “definitely not afraid to keep throwing those fireballs.” That’s not really what’s happening though. Valle throws (precisely spaced) fireballs kind of liberally in the first 20 seconds, but that’s before Balrog gains enough meter to pose a threat. The fireballs at 1:08, 1:40, and 1:44 are canceled from c.MK so they’re safe. Where it looks like he’s going crazy with fireballs at 1:18, they’re mostly from full screen away and the only reason keeps going is because P4P walks into the second one – meaning he doesn’t have charge to ultra. In fact, the only truly risky fireball Valle throws the entire round is at 1:30. Could you react to the one punishable fireball out of eighteen?
game: Super Street Fighter IV (Console)
venue: Midwestern Championships 2010 – Winners Finals
recorded on May 9th, 2010
i really dont know what P4P was thinking during most of that. i mean, he is clearly good, he made it to the winners finals from what the announcers were saying, but wow. maybe the pressure of facing valle got to him, but i noticed a dropped combo off of jab->jab->short, and a seemingly desperate EX headbutt immediately after a TAP, plus he seemed afraid to use s.roundhouse until the very end. good use of EX overhead though, i’m surprised a player like valle fell for it twice.
Yeah, high-profile players like Valle definitely have that effect on people. Plus he’s very hard to read. He’s been around long enough to develop solid fundamentals, but Valle has always been an unorthodox player at heart. He plays Shotos so everyone assumes he’s a standard Ryu player, but not a lot of people could tell you what his actual gameplan is.
You also have to remember that it’s pretty rare to see a match where both players look really good. It’s easy to nitpick in hindsight, but like MvC2 has taught us: Everybody gets shot.
Dude. Maj. Your fucking GODLY at reading peoples intentions and why they do what they do.
Even if you aren’t good at competitive, it’s amazing that you can understand this so easily, and also amazing that you must have to be thinking the exact same thing Valle was.
Eh, i played with the SHGL crowd for like three years straight. If i could hang with those guys, i know i don’t completely suck.
Then eventually i discovered that my real talents lie in figuring out game engines and doing creative things with that knowledge. That’s what i focus on now because it seems like the best way for me to serve the community.
But i mean, i’ve spent a lot of time thinking about strategy and trying to beat very good players. All that dedication doesn’t disappear instantly, you know?
Don’t get me wrong, if Valle decided to launch a strategy website tomorrow, i’d link to every one of his articles. But that kind of thing doesn’t really happen in our community, so someone’s gotta do it.
I know that i don’t know everything, but i can usually find one or two insightful things to point out – so i’m gonna keep doing that until someone comes along and does it better.