This Sunday, after sleeping in from my long day on Saturday, I went out to the Underground Tournament League Street Fighter 4 party/ tournament.

We arrived around 3:30 PM or so to find the party was already in full effect. I was excited to see a TON of people that I knew and found out the people who had been placing 1st in the past few tournaments were all there to try to hold on to their title. Everyone mingled for a while and practiced while the DJs were pumping out their music off to the side. (Great music by the way guys!) There were 4 set ups for SF4.

1. An HD projector aimed at the back wall with a white screen. Huge, no lag… looked great at night but was hard to play on before sunset.
2. A nice sized unknown brand HD tv.
3. A HUGE unknown brand hd tv brounght in by one of the players. I wish I could have taken a pic… great graphics, no lag… the best set up there.
4. The 2nd largest hd tv. This was a Samsung. I didn’t play on it so I’m not sure if there was lag or not but the graphics looked great.

One of the 4 DJs that came to the UTL SF4 event

I was SUPER excited when my buddies Shawn, Sam and KenjixSamurai all decided to show up as well. If you don’t remember, Shawn and Sam showed up at the GH: Metallica tournament and both walked away with prizes for high score and for coming the closest to my score the night before. Also, KenjixSamurai was my Zangeif teammate at the DIZeLAN 3 on 3 event.

I spent most of my time trying to get some practice in with Mike Ross since I hadn’t practiced SF4 at all really, only got about 10 or so games in at Video 94 here and there, but had a hard time doing that since everyone wanted to play with Mike. All of a sudden it didn’t matter that Christian, the 1st place winner of the last UTL SF4 tourney was there, or that Dan and his Guile were on a 15 win streak on HDtv #2.

The brackets were SUPPOSED to be randomized, but judging from my first match I will say that they weren’t very random at all. The guy who ran the tournament claimed that he did not modify the brackets but I was put against someone for the pure fact of the guys wanted to see that particular match up, which I thought wasn’t too funny. The fact that this was done reminded me of how people wanted to modify Devastatin brackets just for entertainment so I was a bit peeved during this match. I won my first match against a Cammy player 2 games clean. (4 rounds without a loss) I honestly underestimated this person and was surprised when each round I was left with only about 1/4 of my life left. That was too close for my liking.

StarSlay3r (SA) First Game in the UTL SF4 tournament

Later I had to vs my toughest opponent. Everyone gathered around to watch this match. Basically people had seen me beating him earlier during practice (I had a 5 game win streak with my Sagat vs his Gouken and beat his C.Viper and others) and figured it would be a good match. While I was a bit upset about having to vs him so early (we were hoping to wipe out everyone and place 1st/2nd) I was happy I’d finally get a chance to vs him in a tournament setting. Many people in the past have heard about me beating him here and there and have said “Yeah right, he went easy on you” or “Playing casually and in a tournament setting are two different things” so this was it. He has always said “I never go easy on you. I always play 100%” but this was his time to prove it since money was on the line.

(The way the tournament is run is that the first person to win 2 out of 3 games advances to the next bracket. If you lose you’re allowed to change your character, but if you win you have to stick to your character. This is standard for SF4 tournies.)

Game 1 StarSlay3r (SA) vs Mike Ross (GK)

Our first match was me with Sagat vs him with Gouken. I made a lot of mistakes and my timing was a bit too early on many of my moves. We both even whiffed ultras at one point in time… it was not our best performance, but I won the first game 2-1.

StarSlay3r takes Game 1 vs Mike Ross

A bit upset about losing the first game he thought long and hard about what character to choose for game 2. Mike has been maining Zangief lately and I have had a lot of Zangief practice. When I’ve played my Sagat vs his Zangief at Video 94 I beat him several times thanks to the fact that Sagat and his fireballs and HK are godlike in this match. Mike then decided to pick E. Honda. I don’t have to tell you all why he picked Honda either….

StarSlay3r (SA) vs Mike Ross (HO) Game 2

Knowing I have never beat Mike’s Honda before I decided I’d do my best in this match and basically just try to do as much damage as possible. The first round came to an end and I ALMOST beat him! He was seriously scared. Mike was later quoted “I was thinking… oh my god… is she really going to win and mess this all up?” After seeing how close I came to beating Mike I had started to let it get to me mentally, and the next round he got a perfect on me making our scores 1-1.

Mike takes Game 2 2-0

The 3rd game it was all on the line. This is basically what will determine if it’s me or him. While I wanted to win (of course, who wouldn’t want to say they beat Mike in a tournament?) I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to place 1st and ensuring that someone else would by taking away their main threat. I stuck with Sagat since I didn’t want to risk a severe beat down by switching to anyone else I wasn’t 100% comfortable using under pressure.

Round 2 was when I really fought hard and survived several handslap 12 hit combos and blocked an Ultra just to come back from on the brink of death to surviving one more round.

StarSlay3r tiger knees her way to victory in Game 3 round 2

I didn’t want to go out just yet…. I wanted it to come down to the final round and it did. With everyone gathered around watching the match on the projector I was nervous as heck!Round 3 went to Mike and he almost got another perfect on me. A flurry of hand slaps made me nervous and I remembered back when we first started playing together over 3 months ago. I clutched out an Ultra when he was about to finish me off with a stomp and was excited I brought his health down to 1/3 or so before dying.

StarSlay3r clutches an Ultra in round 3

We went back and forth but in the end he won.

I wish I had played better, but at least I can say I went up against the #2 Street Fighter 4 player in the nation and it all came down to the final round of the 3rd game. I wouldn’t have wanted to lose to anyone else. Also, I was the only person who was able to beat Mike 1 game. Mike was able to beat everyone else in the tournament 2 games in a row all the way through to 1st place. I consider this a personal victory and will try harder to improve my skills to give him even more of a run for his money next time!

Congrats Mike for claiming 1st and showing everyone in the UTL why you’re one of the best! We’ll be attending the next UTL SF4 tourney which I’m told will be held in a dojo in Los Angeles. I can’t wait!!!