Wednesday night I packed and had mostly everything ready to go. I actually took quite a bit of luggage including two duffel bags, laptop, a folding chair, snack cooler, arcade stick bag, and an inflatable mattress. Last year there wasn't any seating during the pools so I wanted to make sure I had my own chair. Two weeks prior I had found someone on the SRK forums to room with for a fair price (I was told 4 people in the room including myself but that's not how things turned out) so I brought an air mattress assuming I would be on the floor. Thursday after work, I left and arrived around 6PM. The drive was about 5 hours as I hit some traffic near the NV border and stopped to get gas near Yermo-coincidentally at the same place I stopped last year. I hadn't driven to Vegas since so my subconscious must have made that exit familiar, or maybe I just had the same amount of gas in the tank. When I realized it was the same exit, I went to the same gas station and thought about the attendant I met last year playing a Gamecube at the register. He wasn't familiar with EVO and hadn't heard much about fighting games but I figured it was worth asking at the time. This year he wasn't there so maybe sitting at a gas station in the middle of the desert playing video games got old. Good thing I only had 3 days of that ahead of me. Being summer, it was obviously hot, and on the stretch of the freeway with warning signs about turning off A/C to prevent overheating, the car thermometer read 108.
Pulling in to the RIO near the Masquerade Tower I impatiently called my roommate trying to figure out where to go to put all my stuff down. When we met inside the cool casino, he appeared to be very exhausted and irritated. On the 13th floor, our room was full of people practicing, only 3 of them I recognized. Two local players and BurnYourBra, the second place finisher at the EVO 2010 Women's Invitational. I wasn't keen on the number of people in the small room as I had to find a place to put my stuff. I decided to quickly put everything in the closet and gained an unfriendly stare from one of the unknown faces. What was going on in this place? Was it time to find my own room for the night, play and leave again like last year? I decided to sit down and try to adjust to the people and get to know names but only a few minutes later everyone moved to another room for practice so I exchanged numbers and went down to the casino floor hoping to find someone I knew. I ran into some friends and wondered around for a while looking for cheap food. Starting on foot on Flamingo Drive we decided it would be better to get in the car and ended up at Taco Bell a couple miles away. Arriving back at the Rio still confused about the room situation, I headed up and knocked on the door to get ready for Friday's early morning competition. I decided to check in for the night not knowing how much room I would have when people got back, so I quickly picked a spot on the floor without my air mattress. I tried to sleep but was awakened by people coming and going throughout the night, being out of my element and nervousness about the next day.
Friday at 6AM my alarm went off, but I really didn't need it to wake me up. One of my other roommates (the one who gave me an odd stare earlier) was already awake and getting ready so we introduced ourselves and I got to talk to him some more. We ended up eating breakfast and hanging out through the weekend, and he eventually told me the stare wasn't unintentional and was out of his frustration with the number of people in the room. He was also told when he made the room reservations with the host that there would be only 4 people so seeing me come in and put my stuff in the closet irked him. We both had something in common and I had told him that I wasn't sure about staying in that room for the weekend at that point. I hadn't paid for my share of the room yet and was feeling relieved that I hadn't. After the costly $15 breakfast we headed down to the main hall where the first set of contenders were gathering and the EVO staff were preparing. The doors were closed so people piled up, some still yawning and looking worn out or hungover.
Journey to the EVO area, 7:50AM.
With a few minutes to wait in line and mingle, I picked up my lanyard/badge and promo bag which contained a coupon for a free EVO 2011 shirt. People near spoke of the usual things like where they were from or what they were expecting to see like who would make it to the finals in each game. I actually hoped WolfKrone (from Minnesota) and Daigo (from Japan) would be in the SF finals and made sure to point that out to WolfKrone when I saw him. The doors opened exactly on time at 8:00 and people rushed in to admire the main hall which was actually several rooms combined.
Main hall 8:05AM. Keep in mind that this photo shows only a handful of the people from the morning pools and there was still 2 full days of players to pass through- attendance was very high this year.
In previous major tournaments waiting for your next match could take several hours. One of the most improved changes this year was the playing pool system. Instead of large pools with 32 or more competitors, each was limited to 16 with a total of 26 pools each filled every two hours with the next group of players. If you won or lost your match, it would be less than an hour before you played your next. Winners would move to a quarter final match later in the day and then onto semi-finals. If you lost, you had the rest of the day to do as you wanted to check out friend's matches or do all the other things available. So not long after my first match I was called for my next against a Dan player. He was new to SF or didn't know the matchup as I had no trouble winning. With one official win I was still in and ready to go for my 3rd match. I got put up against a Blanka player. Another significantly imbalanced matchup for T. Hawk, but one that I feel more comfortable with. I wish this match was recorded because I think I played very well, and we went to the end of each round. In the final set I got impatient and tried to attack aggressively which ended up being my downfall. Another tournament done and out. When 12:00PM came around for my MK match, I decided to forfeit and notified the pool ref. I just simply hadn't practiced since the game came out and didn't want to stress over a loss.
Random pool match.
With all the frustration at it's peak I did the usual contemplation of quitting fighting games and walked in circles pretending to pay attention to other player's matches. I couldn't really leave all the action and even if I wanted to I would have to go back up to the room and hope to not disturb everyone by knocking on the door to get in. From what I can recall I stayed in the main hall for most of the day, then went to eat with one of my local buddies Nick at the Rio seafood buffet. Endless crab legs? Always worth the money and with our EVO 2011 discount I couldn't pass it up. Going back to the main hall towards the end of the day I checked to see if anything else exciting was happening but most people were totally burnt out and there were only a handful of murmurs about money match suites. Traveling and playing video games could never be more tiring.
MvC3 People
Saturday and Sunday were mostly a blur, possibly from the constant food coma I was in. Saturday I did get to play against "Image", a fellow T. Hawk player who has had more success in tournaments than I have. We played a set of about 15 games and he beat me 6-4. I didn't get to go to the swimming pool on Sunday because it was raining and humid, and not only that but when I asked about going on Saturday you needed a room key to go down there. Another reason to get my own room. One embarrassing thing I did was waited in the buffet line for 20 minutes thinking my pass was still valid from the previous day, but unfortunately I was 8 hours late. My sense of time seems to get mixed up when there's so much going on around and there's not really a need to check the clock. Nothing really stood out Sunday except the closing events and their raw excitement of exhibitions and special video premiers, and the top 16 final matches. Good thing I had a folding chair because the main hall was completely full and seating consisted of finding a spot on the floor in the back of the gigantic hall. Slowly I inched my way up through the rows in the folding chair until I was about 20 rows from the front on the left side. I had to use the restroom at one point - I couldn't give up my spot but luckily there was a nice guy who watched my seat for me. He said he came from out of state with his girlfriend, who had no interest in the whole thing and instead waited in the hotel room throughout the finals. Would you rather sit in the hotel room all day or at least come down and watch something exciting? Speaking of exciting...
Right before the final match between Latif and Fuudo, I get an angry text message from one of the roommates saying that something was stolen from his bag in the room. Here we go...am I going to miss the finals again? I sat for a minute and contemplated just ignoring the possibly problematic situation and peacefully watching (while screaming) the finals. Last year I didn't get to see the finals in person and yet again I missed them this year. It would be wise of me to go check on the situation as my belongings were in the room and who knows what could be missing. I called the room host and he was aware of the situation but like me didn't want to leave and miss the finals to see what was going on either. Why was our other roommate not watching the finals and instead in his room checking his bags? I felt obligated to tend to my roommates situation because we had established a friendship over the weekend but it was very bad timing. The room host and I went up to the 13th floor and things got messy when accusations about thievery started flying around the room (among bags and clothes as everyone sorted through their belongings). Eventually things cooled down, but as names were mentioned as possible suspects in the possible theft, everyone went down to the hall to look for possible thieves except for myself who waited in the room to make sure nothing strange was going on. The situation ended without any violence but suddenly everyone packed up their stuff wanting to avoid any further friction and left early except the victim of the possible theft and myself. It was around 10PM at that point so I decided to call it a night in the empty room and set my alarm for 7AM Monday. Surprisingly I slept well after all that, maybe from the exhaustion.
Monday I just packed everything as fast as I could and made a valiant effort to carry all of my belongings to the car in one trip. That was a very challenging task. Time to exercise so I can carry luggage once a year....Still blurry eyed from awakening I hopped on the freeway, noticing how strange it was to drive after a 3 day break from being in a car. One the way back home I stopped at the Alien Fresh Jerky store in Baker, CA. I'm convinced I'll find something I like here but so far I haven't. The prices are high and there were not any free samples despite the posted signs saying otherwise. Still I walked out with Imperial sugar Dr. Pepper and peppered jerky. I'm not a huge beef jerky consumer probably because it's hard to digest. Turkey jerky next time. And- thanks to new spark plugs and wires before the trip, I drove 440 miles on a tank.
In retrospective, I feel that possibly for the first time I came out of a tournament less frustrated (or for a shorter duration) and more optimistic about improvement. There are things I can now see I'm not doing (what?) and look forward to making some adjustments for the smaller events in the upcoming year. I saw the local mystery T. Hawk compete at EVO who almost eliminated the 3rd place finisher. I'm also starting a savings fund for my own room next year. Lesson learned there. I also said I would be more of a tourist but didn't get to do that either. So to next year, with more good drama and less bad drama!
Horrible photo from the 13th floor elevator waiting area.
Right before the final match between Latif and Fuudo, I get an angry text message from one of the roommates saying that something was stolen from his bag in the room. Here we go...am I going to miss the finals again? I sat for a minute and contemplated just ignoring the possibly problematic situation and peacefully watching (while screaming) the finals. Last year I didn't get to see the finals in person and yet again I missed them this year. It would be wise of me to go check on the situation as my belongings were in the room and who knows what could be missing. I called the room host and he was aware of the situation but like me didn't want to leave and miss the finals to see what was going on either. Why was our other roommate not watching the finals and instead in his room checking his bags? I felt obligated to tend to my roommates situation because we had established a friendship over the weekend but it was very bad timing. The room host and I went up to the 13th floor and things got messy when accusations about thievery started flying around the room (among bags and clothes as everyone sorted through their belongings). Eventually things cooled down, but as names were mentioned as possible suspects in the possible theft, everyone went down to the hall to look for possible thieves except for myself who waited in the room to make sure nothing strange was going on. The situation ended without any violence but suddenly everyone packed up their stuff wanting to avoid any further friction and left early except the victim of the possible theft and myself. It was around 10PM at that point so I decided to call it a night in the empty room and set my alarm for 7AM Monday. Surprisingly I slept well after all that, maybe from the exhaustion.
Monday I just packed everything as fast as I could and made a valiant effort to carry all of my belongings to the car in one trip. That was a very challenging task. Time to exercise so I can carry luggage once a year....Still blurry eyed from awakening I hopped on the freeway, noticing how strange it was to drive after a 3 day break from being in a car. One the way back home I stopped at the Alien Fresh Jerky store in Baker, CA. I'm convinced I'll find something I like here but so far I haven't. The prices are high and there were not any free samples despite the posted signs saying otherwise. Still I walked out with Imperial sugar Dr. Pepper and peppered jerky. I'm not a huge beef jerky consumer probably because it's hard to digest. Turkey jerky next time. And- thanks to new spark plugs and wires before the trip, I drove 440 miles on a tank.
In retrospective, I feel that possibly for the first time I came out of a tournament less frustrated (or for a shorter duration) and more optimistic about improvement. There are things I can now see I'm not doing (what?) and look forward to making some adjustments for the smaller events in the upcoming year. I saw the local mystery T. Hawk compete at EVO who almost eliminated the 3rd place finisher. I'm also starting a savings fund for my own room next year. Lesson learned there. I also said I would be more of a tourist but didn't get to do that either. So to next year, with more good drama and less bad drama!
Horrible photo from the 13th floor elevator waiting area.
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