Your life for 100 damage? Your life for....100 DAMAGE!?

Hello again,

So I was at a local ranbat playing casuals against one of the top players in my area and he said something to me that struck a chord. It was the third round of a Ryu Vs. Abel match and I had Abel on the ropes. Abel had Ultra and I was closing the gap and trying to get past his standing light kick and forward middle kick footsie game. I was throwing out a few random pokes trying to bait something...a jump, but mostly an ultra when I thought to myself "This guy knows that I know a fireball would be stupid right now, so maybe if I throw an EX Hado at mid-screen range it will surprise him and land me some of the damage I need to A: Win and B: Advance." Wrong Answer. I get close enough to his 'grill' and go for it only to be Ultra'ed through on reaction for the loss. He turns to me and says "Resist the temptation, man... your life for 100 damage? Your life for....100 DAMAGE!?", of course he was referring to the EX fireball that I threw and its 100 damage output. I read somewhere on Gootecks' website that the number one difference between top players and everyone else is smart Risk vs. Reward decision making. The majority of us who play Street Fighter think we are doing something smart like the above mentioned situation only to find out that it was maybe the dumbest thing we could have done. We think we are going to 'pull a fast one' on a good player and win. But, when you think about gambling your life for 100 damage, the answer seems pretty cut and dry....don't do it.

This is not to say we shouldn't take risks. Taking smart risks is how good players win. It's deciding when to take a risk and what the reward might be and also what the punishment might be for such risk. I often wonder "How can someone think so clearly about risk vs. reward so quickly while they are playing?". The answer is probably experience. The more you play, the more you see situations and strategies, and the more you see different kinds of opponents the easier it is to adjust to them.
So, like everything Street Fighter related we just have to keep at it and ask ourselves if we really want to put our lives on the line for 100 damage.

Well, it's off to California this week for work. I'm out there for three weeks, and will be fortunate enough to attend the "Level Up Tournament" hosted by Alex Valle. It will be fun to be at something in-person that I would normally be watching over the internet. I wanted to enter, but registration closed pretty quickly. I would have most likely been dominated anyway as my major achievements include reaching G2-D and beating a 40 year old drunk guy who had never touched a controller before...oh well, there is always next time eh?