First of all stop telling everyone your plan before the match. Whatever you do don't let Tricky know what your going to do. There is nothing wrong with the element of surprise. Second These FT10 are to lvl you up. What your new plan is that your trying to take the easy way out and in VF that is only going to gimp you. Third I don't think I can beat your Elieen one handed. You now have a video that tells you everything your doing wrong with Elieen. If I we're you I would clear my mind, wait for the dust to settle, and correct your monkey.

Thank you everyone for joining in raw episode 2 last night. Hopefully we didn't interrupt your walking dead reunion, nudge x2? @-@

Having said that, I think we are slowly getting a decent template to work off of and in time it will come.

Pre-interview was golden and gives more substance and a great background story to the names all of you played before, but never knew.

The post interview IMHO needs to be shortened, because it strayed a wee bit from the topic at hand, tricky and even pit. Maybe a handful of 5-7 questions without going into other tangents?

My guilty botchup was not being excited with my least favorite character, but I think next time I'll encounter this situation, captain morgan will be at half mast to help in the voyage.

Big shoutout to bstar for nurturing the raw baby and co host shiny for bringing the much needed entertainment. Props for tricky and even pit showing up and displaying the monkey' s tool kit.

Big thank you to everyone's constructive criticisms, because we all need it and are eternally learning.

We'll, from the raw staff we wholeheartedly thank you for viewing and help in our effort to keep VF exciting and alive! Cya next week.

Peace

@EvenPit
Making sure not to beat yourself before the fight even starts is a large part of fighting known players. To make another DBZ reference, fighters who have a reputation also have an aura that goes with them. That aura can make people who feel weaker actually trip up when they wouldn't otherwise. Kinda like when someone who's super powerful in DBZ is powering up and pushing weaker fighters off their feet, but the strong fighters aren't even flinching. That's how I see fighters aura and VFers have it and I personally cultivate one. The way you felt during our set is something I deliberately try to make my opponent feel afraid and fear. If my aura had a color it'd be red.

When I fight against Itazen or Fuudo at sega cup I have to battle the idea that their play is perfect and look at them as just another shun player. We all have those players where we just have a block in seeing our opponents flaws. What is even harder is that strong players do a real good job of hiding their flaws and holes in their game. Sometimes there aren't actual holes in their game, you just have to play more solid than they are.

I fought a very long set with Itazen and I wouldn't' say I idolized him, but I had a great deal of respect for him as a player. For me the moment where I started having him talk a little bit of trash to me because I was getting close to taking matches off him was the turning point for me. That's when I saw him more as a person instead of infallible because I knew the trash talk is him recognizing the threat. I then started to talk back to him when I caught him off guard and soon enough I was taking rounds off him and eventually got a match.

Now my goal of just wanting to get a match off him, or just get a round isn't a great goal, but it was realistic given the situation. I have a similar story with Fuudo as we did a nice long set after the Cup too, but he wouldn't talk trash. He just reacted with gasps when I'd hit him in situations when he wasn't expecting it. With him I never gout a match but I got rounds and was getting closer and closer to getting that match I wanted.

For me all I need is a round. If you can get ONE ROUND you can beat a person. All you have to do is repeat that round again. You were able to get rounds on me, I wasn't able to 3 and 0 you each match. So maybe try to take the FT10 one round at a time. Matches aren't won as a whole, they're won one round at a time.

Full disclosure there are jp eileen players who I would have a mental block again in the first few sets I'd fight them in. Once I get them to react with surprise though, that lets me know i can beat them. They don't know everything and have openings just like the rest of us. This same struggle you're having with fighting against me, I feel like a lot of western VFers have against fighting the JP. You are not alone in your struggle, we all have it.

This is a real key point and I've been on this train. I have this problem against players who I think should beat me. Getting rid of that mentality is something you do have to do as you get stronger. You have to feel like you deserve to win.

If you guys are right then maybe i just have a blind spot here. As i don't idolize any players.

My all time favorite player is lucky GT (because of his defense in vanilla back when defense was an art in decision, execution, and dexterity). I still want to lock him down when we've played though. As of yet, i've been very unsuccessful.

But especially now days i can't see idolizing another player. I guess this comes from a bit of what happy friend lau bitches about; the higher level you play the game, the more boring it becomes. I'm hard pressed to watch high level play and think "oh man i wish i could low punch, mid punch, jab like that!!!!". Something about the sheer volume of low punch, evade low punch, and hey how bout some more low punch done at the highest level tournaments gets me closer to wanting to quit playing, then play like those guys. Of course...i want to win so i do it to the best of my ability lol.

So if you are correct that evenpit beat himself thru idolization then...crazy. Personally i'm wondering if this is just a difference in interpretation--although i haven't listened to the pregame interviews. Or maybe it's because i don't see things as simply black and white. I don't see why evenpit couldn't idolize what tricky does with eileen and still think 'hey i got a shot'. Idk. So subjective.

Now in reference to shiny's comparison to a pre-boxing match, i just don't see that applies at all here. If you are going into a boxing match or mma fight you are theoretically matched up against someone of a similar caliber. Worst case scenario is you have a "puncher's chance". There was no chance evenpit was gonna land an epic 9k and end the match in the first round. It would be like saying a college team should BELIEVE they were going to outplay a professional team. It would be sorta silly. Personally i disagree that evenpit should win 33% of his matches vs tricky (5/15), but it's my opinion based on my opinion, so yeah.

Also, if my aura had a color tricky, it would be grey and heartless!

I like that. No soul.

Hey for this sunday I can do exhibition matches on psn before your raw event so let me know.

Also I am going to give evenpit a chance to redeem himself after the ft 10, I am not saying it was a bad match or anything its probably all good I have not seen it yet but I will. So evenpit vs me on psn ft10, what is your answer evenpit ?

Me vs you evenpit ft10, next sunday, what do you say? On psn.

LOL What!? Yeah um I really don't have a PSN thingy but if I ever would it would be Lazy_Wolf I guess you didn't catch the sarcasm in that post but no worries I'm pretty sure @kingo wouldn't mind fighting you again live. on stream. everybody watching.

@Tricky So basically I beat myself up and lost the FT10 b4 it even started. Thats got 2 be some kind of record.
@BLACKSTAR 100% truth, even with my pad in full effect I still would have lost the sets we usually play I don't think I ever beat Tricky 10 times in one day thats just the reality. &
"(like watching EvenPit trying to punch his favorite painting of his fine-arts collection)". Im not gonna lie this is on target analogy.

@EvenPit you'll do better next time. It's not just that you beat yourself before the set, we all beat ourselves before sets.

@BLACKSTAR @EvenPit Yeah I've been trying to break folks out of the japan player worship for a while but it's hard. You can't pull them out, you have to just let them pull themselves out.

aside edit: I don't think we talk enough about the psychology behind playing VF. Not just the mixups but the fact that you're facing a person and how to deal with that. Their rep, their legacy, or their lack of rep and legacy.

So is Lib or Blackula going to do a prefight interview?

Where is me and Jacko's interview? LOL

Shadowmaster, IM COMING FOR YOU !

Getting in on the hype train already whatever do whatever you want I am not running away. I will let you do all the talking and I will just take it like any other room battle with no hype or pressure from my end.

who are we hyping for this sunday?! Who's gonna be in the PSN room?