Team Hydra in Korea

Yeah and its free!!!!! Im playing in all of them. Enkindu better watch out for my capcom vs snk skillz lol.

 

I'm going to play with my feet in that tournament. Take the smell or die!

-Enk

 

Well guys I know I am somewhat of invisible entity but I am in Korea too.

Unlike the Florida Duo though I have relatives and friends to attend to here. Well, I am staying at my Uncle's family but to me they are closer than my real family. They expect me to spend good deal of time with them (specially my cousins who are out of school) and I value that time as well, more important than playing a Video game.

That said, I will try to squeeze some time to hang out with the Florida duo and write reports of my own. Last night (Monday) I met Florida duo at Viva Arcade in Seoul. (Well there is no V sound in Korean but anyway.)

Arcade:
The arcade had four evo machine set ups in row. This may not be ground breaking by the Japanese standard. But show me a set up outside Japan that matches this. . . I think I got there around six maybe. Only one guy playing there at the time. But very soon the attendance swelled so that you hardly had enough room to breath. Then the Florida duo came.

Florida Duo:
They are still having issues from the stick. Well, I am no exception either. Very often I would try to crouch dash only to see my char just sitting there doing nothing. Interesting enough, even though I had serious trouble crouch dashing, TFT-knee comboes worked okay. (Now what's up with that.) Overall, the sticks left me an optimistic feeling that I can adapt to it sooner or later. My crouch dashing got better as I played more game. Can't say about circle moves and such as I haven't tried. I would say this is not worse than the most US stick configurations.

There is one card enabled machine in Seoul and one more outside Seoul. Both of them have Japanese sticks and today we hope to go find this machine. We will find what Florida duo can really do againt Korean comp. I just hope many good players show up there tonight.

Yamainu promised that they will do their best to have the Japanese sticks available for foreign teams. (It depends on the Japanese team keeping their promise to bring the Japanese sticks to tourney. Still, why wouldn't they?) Yet, due to the logistics of the tourney some matches may have to be played on the Korean stick. I believe you can be assured that you will play some matches on Japanese stick, if not the most matches.

And let's face it, Jpn stick or not, chance of winning the tourney against the best Japan and Korea had to offer (with Kyasao ShinZ and all) would be slim. I think your primary interest should be to enjoy the atomosphere and have good time.

Others:
I will try to meet up with Florida crew and explore Seoul downtown during the day. I believe it would be a shame if they flew all the way over here on an all day flight without gaining some more cultura experiences. After that we will head to the arcade that has the Japanese sticks

 

Cool report hyun

 

Hey Hyun,

I have a few questions that I hope you can help give some color on:

- How do average Koreans get from Incheon to Seoul? By bus, subway, taxi?

- How long would it take to ride a cab from airport into the city on a Saturday morning? Any ideas on cost?

Many thanks on whatever help you can give me!

 

I have a few questions about the tournament... When does it take place? (our time)? Is it a team tournament or 1 on 1?

Just curious... Good luck guys!

-Alex

 

supergolden, I think the tourney is team battle only. US team is IMF, Blonde_One and ICE-9. I dont think there is a one on one tourney, would take way too long lol.

Also, korean time is really easy to tell. Its 14 hours ahead of us. So if its 1:15pm jan 21 eastern time its 3:15am jan 22 Korean time, one day ahead. HOpe that helps.

Talking with Korean vf players forces you to understand timezones.

 

Hey Jeff,
While taxi is relatively cheap in Korea, (cheaper than Taiwan) I think riding taxi all the way from the airport will be quite expensive. Bus is the way to go. (A few years ago when the older, closer airport was used, Subway was the ultra cheap way to go/from airport, but no longer.) They have express "deluxe" bus that costs around $10 US. Cheaper buses that make more stops (but still convenient enough) cost a little less than $5 to the city. Once you are in the city (drop off at the nearest stop) it may not be a bad idea to take a taxi to the final destination.

And the tourney is a team tournament.

They will hopefully announce all the details today. When they do that I will post here myself.

BTW, I didn't get to hang out with the Florida Duo yesterday as I found that they were well, physically wasted after drinking late and then playing VF beyond sunrise and was no position to hand around during the day. (And I was occupied myself for the night.) How long are you staying Jeff, I guess not too long?

 

Hey Hyun, I am staying until Tuesday--basically I'm allocating two days to just enjoy Seoul. This will be my first time in Korea outside of the airport. Any recommendations of tours that I can join?

Also, I'd love to take you out for a drink there. Drop me your number by PM.

As for the bus thing--I've seen 40,000-50,000 won quoted for taxis, so the bus far is significantly cheaper. Is this an option that a foreigner with zero Korean can realistically pursue?

 

Ohh..see if you can get some DDR photage while your over there also!!

 

About the BUS:
Yes, yes, that's clearly an option for someone with no Korean ability. The buses inside the city are admittedly difficult for the foreigners to use. (I find that to be true for most countries.) But the airport buses should be a different story.

More of concern for you is this though: The tourney starts at 1PM saturday and things might be tight for you to get there in time and have lunch. But well, it would be tight but not impossible.

Here are some tourney info:
Two days tourney (25-26)
The tourney will start with "events" for the foreign participants. (I talked with Yamainu but he would not give too much detail. I am not sure if there is enough time for Kyasao to have a hundred-men Kumite, but some other special events for the foreign players will be in place.)

The tourney will be held near the Korea University in Seoul. What this means is that the place is in Northwestern edge of the city and pretty far from the airport. (Or even the center of the city for that matter) This gives some convenience/time problem for you Jeff regarding transportation. (As I said before, things maybe tight.) I will talk to Yamainu again and get back to you.

The tourney will have 48 Korean teams plus foreign teams, about 150 players. (As a side note, there will be about 30 Akiras among them.)

The teams will be divided into six groups for round robin matches. Top 16 teams will make it to the final elimination. I believe top two teams from each group will make it to the next round first. Then the 3rd place teams will have another round-robin to determine the other four teams to enter the elimination. . . . something like that. If you have Kyasao or ShinZ's team in your group, there maybe a fierce competition to make it to the second place!

As far as what you can do to enjoy Seoul and its vicinity, that would be a post for another day.

 

Hyun, I arrive Incheon at 8:35 am. At most, I will be out of the airport and ready to leave by 9 am. I have a hard time believing that it would take 4 hours to get to Korea University from Incheon.

Nobody seems to have an address for the tournament site. Assuming my plane gets in late and I have to rush, should I just tell the taxi driver to go to Korea University? Will I be able to find the tournament from there?

Arm me with information! Right now I feel like I have no expectation as to what is supposed to happen. I travel a lot and can take care of myself...just let me know where exactly I'm supposed to be.

BTW, can you please also ask YamaInu on my behalf the address of my hotel, just in case I have time to spare to drop my stuff off before the start of the tournament.

Cheers!

 

More stuff: Today is the day when the first Japanese players arrive. So in preparation we've managed to meet Shinz at Pogini Game Center for an ALL afternoon training session on EVO =), VERY HOT! We'll be playing with shinz from 1pm-7pm then go to ViVa Arcade to play with the newly arriving japanese players(kyasao, CYC aoi). The sticks are getting more managable as time goes on, yesterday IMF and myself had some streaks at the Gzone arcade. It was fun!

On a side note: We have to win a total of 4 times to make in the finals. We are group F out of A-F. Hopefully, we can pull this one out of our butts =P.

 

Hey Chris,
I will be there at Viva tonight as well. And to Jeff, I will talk to Yamainu about your situation. So Just make sure to check back before you leave, okay?

 

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We have to win a total of 4 times to make in the finals. We are group F out of A-F.

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Big Boy says: even the underdog gets to be the dog someday.

I have no idea what this means but I'm pretty sure they are words of encouragement. Also, I heard someone on this board somewhere say something like "Move and think faster than the other guy and you'll win. No bullshit" I think this might be a good approach to take here, whaddayou think? /versus/images/icons/wink.gif

Ice-9--I wasn't kidding. Playing with confidence=giving yourself a chance to win. Playing without confidence=guaranteeing defeat.

Have fun & good luck ALL.

 

Blonde_One: is the tournament single elimination? I.e. one loss and we don't get to play any more?

Hyun: Cool, will do. I'm leaving Friday night my time, or about 30 hours from now.

sanjuro: Actually I'm generally a self-assured guy, though I play more tensely if I know I'm on a team. However, I didn't realize that the sticks are going to be sausage and the buttons horizontal...I'm shockingly sensitive to the quality of the stick I play with (definitely a flaw in my game). Hopefully, all motor memories I accumulated from VF4 in the NYC Broadway arcade (2P side) will resurface in time...

 

hey jeff good lluck... did you train for this event??? with danny??? I mean if you can beat danny consistently maybe you have chance to win some games...

but win or lose I really envy you... it is nice to meet up with all the best players and play with them

 

</font><blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr />
win or lose I really envy you... it is nice to meet up with all the best players and play with them

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I think at the end of the day, that's what everyone want to gain from it...


(of coz, there are those who were prefer to think otherwise....well, consider me naive then ^_^)

 

Well okay this is what YamaInu told me:

The problem according to YamaInu: If you didn't know, many of the workplaces in korea have half-days on Saturdays. Which means that as you get off the airport on Saturday morning, you will actually be fighting the rush hour traffic. The road to Korea University is quite busy through out Saturday accoridng to YamaInu. So that's why he is saying things will be tight for you. And that's why he is saying that you should not try to stop by your hotel.

Here is his recommendataion: Ride an airport bus to Yeoungdeungpo. (Technically, you can take a subway from there to Korea University stop.) But I guess he recommends Taxi. He estimates it would cost about 20000won (1150won=$1US) Tell the Taxi driver to go to the main gate of Korea University

Once you are there, you will be able to see an English sign for G-Zone arcade. The tourney location is right next to the arcade. You have two options here:
1. Walk into the arcade and talk to a staff about TBzone tourney. Even if they don't speak English, they will know what you are talking about and be able to usher you.
2. If you can't do #1 for whatever reason. Call YamaInu (I don't unfortunately carry cell phone) on a public phone in front of the University. I believe he has given you his number? Notice that most of the public phones take phone cards only, not coins, but there should be one in the area that takes coins. One of us will find you asap.

Extra Note: If you choose to ride train, you can find G-Zone arcade by riding to Korea University Stop (AKA Jongam stop) get out of the stop by #6 exit, and walk about 50 meters. The stop itself is on #6 Subway line on the northeastern part of the city.

Photo:
http://vfevo.com/board/view.php?id=column_5&page=1&sn1=&divpage=1&sn=off&ss=on&sc=on&select_arrange=headnum&desc=asc&no=7


One last tip about taxi riding: Once you get off the bus I doubt you will have too much trouble finding a taxi. But one thing to watch out for: There are "deluxe" taxis--usually large black vehicles. Don't ride one of them unless you want to pay extra money for no real good reason. Cheaper, regular taxis should be comfortable enough and there is no real reason to ride one of the deluxe taxis.

Also, on 1PM, they will have "events" for the foreign players. The actual tourney will start on 3PM.

 

Not really, just played normally (i.e. one or two sessions biweekly for the past few months) though I played quite a lot with Myke last weekend. Good thing too, because if not for Myke I will get killed by Brads in the tournament.

As for Danny, sometimes he gets a streak on me, sometimes I get a streak on him. I think he has the most recent big streak, but in the last few sessions we have been pretty even.

I actually don't expect to win that many games, especially if I am going to play on a Korean set up without having a chance to adjust.

My strategy is to come in poised, relaxed, and mentally sharp. I'm going to try to keep things simple and to the point. No fancy stuff like I kept going for when I was in Japan. The aim is to win, not to generate oohs and aahs.