Torn

On January 20 2010 20:40 MYM.Testie wrote:

I thought I saw a man brought to life
He was warm
He came around
And he was dignified
He showed me what it was to cry

Well you couldn't be that man I adored
You don't seem to know
Or seem to care
What your heart is for
I don't know him anymore

There's nothin' where he used to lie
My conversation has run dry
That's what's going on
Nothings right
I'm torn

I'm all out of faith
This is how I feel
I'm cold and I am shamed
Lying naked on the floor
Illusion never changed
Into something real
I'm wide awake and I can see the perfect sky is torn
You're a little late
I'm already torn

So I guess the fortune tellers right
I should have seen just what was there and not some holy light
But you crawled beneath my veins
And now, I don't care
I have no luck
I don't miss it all that much
There's just so many things
That I can't touch
I'm torn

There's nothin' he used to lie
My inspiration has run dry
That's what's going on
Nothing's right
I'm torn

On January 20 2010 20:45 KwarK wrote:

My thoughts exactly.

On January 20 2010 20:59 Pholon wrote:


Pholon's you're-a-douche-o-meter
+ - - - - - - - - | - +

It's a serious topic for him, one'd think you could take something as serious as TSL seriousl-oh wait NEVERMIND, Hi Testie!

if you go with t, you let the desire for money dictate your life

On January 20 2010 20:59 Pholon wrote:


Pholon's you're-a-douche-o-meter
+ - - - - - - - - | - +

It's a serious topic for him, one'd think you could take something as serious as TSL seriousl-oh wait NEVERMIND, Hi Testie!

On January 20 2010 20:59 Pholon wrote:


Pholon's you're-a-douche-o-meter
+ - - - - - - - - | - +

It's a serious topic for him, one'd think you could take something as serious as TSL seriousl-oh wait NEVERMIND, Hi Testie!

On January 20 2010 21:39 Plexa wrote:
ZvZ is a luckfest

On January 20 2010 21:47 enzym wrote:
sarcasm much?

its just more demanding than other matchups when it comes to following your opponent closely (how many drones and zerglings he makes, when spire starts) and having good micro to defend the bo you went with or abuse the speed of your units. its very challenging, but this is starcraft and not poker. luck never decides a starcraft game.

On January 20 2010 21:47 enzym wrote:
sarcasm much?

its just more demanding than other matchups when it comes to following your opponent closely (how many drones and zerglings he makes, when spire starts) and having good micro to defend the bo you went with or abuse the speed of your units. its very challenging, but this is starcraft and not poker. luck never decides a starcraft game.

On January 20 2010 22:01 Plexa wrote:
You're trying to argue that of all matchups in starcraft that zvz is the one which luck plays the biggest part?

On January 20 2010 22:14 stenole wrote:
I say you focus on ZvZ until Courage is over regardless of future plans in or out of Korea, simply because you're there and that is an opportunity that is unique for you. You can always win TSL3 later.

On January 20 2010 22:24 Liquid`Nazgul wrote:

What good is a 1/256 chance on a progaming license when you're leaving the country? He should just play whatever gives him the best chance at winning TSL.

On January 20 2010 22:30 enzym wrote:
ret is still in korea. apparently he has enough reason to go for another courage. why shouldnt that also be enough to stick with zvz, or has his stay in korea nothing to do with starcraft at all?

On January 20 2010 22:38 CTStalker wrote:

ret has said that he's leaving korea 4 days after the courage, whether he wins it or not

On January 20 2010 22:54 enzym wrote:

yeah, i know.

On January 20 2010 23:02 CTStalker wrote:

if you already know that, then what wrote before is just plain stupid lol. he's leaving korea, the courage is worth nothing more than pride. the TSL is worth 10 grand

On January 20 2010 23:09 CTStalker wrote:
pride is worthless when you're leaving the country and have given up on being a progamer (not judging ret here). i think the fact that he's even considering switching to TvZ means he values the TSL above courage, which only makes sense

On January 20 2010 23:16 enzym wrote:

i think he isnt so sure. thats why the poll is here ^_^. and for a person that likes thinking about things (philosophying) this is not only a thing of courage vs tsl, but also about deciding what you value, who you want to be, a question of integrity.

the less things you care about the easier your decisions become.
i only provide thoughts. how you use them is up to you.

On January 20 2010 22:55 Frits wrote:
ZvZ, definately. Keep improving your ZvZ and your ZvT and ZvP will benefit as well.

On January 20 2010 23:29 Nytefish wrote:
This is a pretty annoying choice. You have to either deal with the highly volatile ZvZ, or take a big risk by switching to a match-up that you probably lack practice in. I'd say go T only if you think the maps favour them.

On January 20 2010 22:24 Liquid`Nazgul wrote:

What good is a 1/256 chance on a progaming license when you're leaving the country? He should just play whatever gives him the best chance at winning TSL.

On January 20 2010 22:55 Frits wrote:
ZvZ, definately. Keep improving your ZvZ and your ZvT and ZvP will benefit as well.

On January 20 2010 23:58 Tom Phoenix wrote:


Beacuse he has nothing to lose with giving it a try and beacuse winning a progaming license would not only be a historical achievement, but also a confirmation of all his efforts? Just beacuse the chances of him winning a license are small does not mean that he should not try and take it anyway.

Besides which, Ret has spent a lot of time and effort getting his ZvZ up to snuff. At this point, switching back to TvZ would be counterproductive.

On January 21 2010 00:18 s.a.y wrote:
tvz for sure.

you don't stand a chance vs CaStrO or kolll or mondragon or sen in ZvZ.

after you played TvZ for 8-10 years, switching to ZvZ can't get you those years of exp.

please choose fast, so i can finish my TSL contest :D

On January 21 2010 01:15 ret wrote:


you are pretty ignorant... i played them plenty and zergs better than them and I know my chances ZvZ


aaand where do u get 8-10 years from? :|

On January 21 2010 00:24 Salv wrote:


I think it's obvious that his TvZ is still good, or else he wouldn't even be contemplating it. I think the question is more, "Should I just stick it out and try with ZvZ like I planned?" or "Should I revert to my stronger matchup, even though I've invested all this time into my ZvZ?". I bet Ret's TvZ is still better than his ZvZ and that his chances are significantly higher with T than with Z. With Ret going home regardless of courage, he should be concentrating on winning TSL.

On January 21 2010 04:08 {88}iNcontroL wrote:
zvz or tvz.. doesn't matter.. but the longer you sit in between the two mu's the MORE fucked you are getting.

PICK ONE AND GOGO

On January 21 2010 04:14 Chill wrote:

For rela.

On January 21 2010 01:15 ret wrote:


you are pretty ignorant... i played them plenty and zergs better than them and I know my chances ZvZ


aaand where do u get 8-10 years from? :|

-a confused castro is unable to see through the fog and splits his practice between ZvZ and ZvT
-ret practices ZvZ hard core

On January 21 2010 08:06 arb wrote:
ill be quite straight up.

your zvz was 3-2 vs FLAF.

You probably would have beat him 3-0 TvZ so..

On January 21 2010 07:25 NeoOmega wrote:
But in all seriousness, what effect could this have on castro?

On January 21 2010 10:37 Liquid`Drone wrote:


ret has to decide one week before the games what race he is playing so castro gets ample preparation time.

On January 21 2010 03:42 EsX_Raptor wrote:


Now Castro is a South American Zerg. What does this mean? This means that he's going to be playing against you doing some crazyfuck retarded strategies al BO5 series long, and I'm talking about lurker openings with a high probability of dropping non-stop from the early through the late midgame and also maybe some crazy ling allins. He also lags and this means your marine micro will totally fail against lurkers, and we all know that he is a heavy macro Zerg and defends his exps with mass sunken.

Now if you play ZvZ against him, what is the worst things he can do? Ling allin hands down, and I'm quite sure you can actually handle that, aren't you?

On January 21 2010 15:15 cronican wrote:
TvZ because lag will fuck him more than you.

On January 20 2010 21:47 enzym wrote:
sarcasm much?

its just more demanding than other matchups when it comes to following your opponent closely (how many drones and zerglings he makes, when spire starts) and having good micro to defend the bo you went with or abuse the speed of your units. its very challenging, but this is starcraft and not poker. luck never decides a starcraft game.

On January 21 2010 22:58 IdrA wrote:
go z
terran is too hard for you

On January 21 2010 22:58 IdrA wrote:
go z
terran is too hard for you

On January 21 2010 22:58 IdrA wrote:
go z
terran is too hard for you

On January 20 2010 22:30 enzym wrote:

im glad that you know what i mean. so your pride isnt worth 10k? its obviously about pride and thats what i said in my first post - it depends on who you are (who ret is).

On January 21 2010 01:28 redtooth wrote:
looooool... owned by ret himself.

On January 21 2010 22:58 IdrA wrote:
go z
terran is too hard for you

On January 20 2010 21:02 MYM.Testie wrote:


I thought my post was completely harmless. I see why your douche-o-meter is named after you.

On January 21 2010 22:58 IdrA wrote:
go z
terran is too hard for you

On January 21 2010 23:18 FrozenArbiter wrote:

.....
Unbelievably wrong. Seriously, luck is a part of any game with imperfect information, and it's exacerbated in any mirror matchup.

On January 22 2010 18:21 enzym wrote:

except in starcraft there is a thing called scouting, and the better you do it (skill) the less "luck" can work against you. granted, you cant always scout your opponent in time right when the game starts, like on huge maps for example. but thats true for any matchup, not just zvz.
you can always choose your strats based on how well you can defend yourself against possible adversial openings using micro.

in starcraft you can minimize the risk. in poker you can never (ok i havent played poker, but i assume the games wont last long enough for the deck to run out) accurately predict the next card on the top.

i dont deny that luck can play a role on some maps. but thats neither limited to zvz, nor does that factor alone rule out a win. your scouting, the risk you take with your opening bo (not luck) and your micro all matter. plus we're talking about a bo5 here, not a bo1... so both players have plenty chances to reevaluate which opening would suit them best.

if luck decided games than there'd be no reason to talk about skill at all. maybe i didnt explain my thoughts very well earlier, so i tried to fix that here.

beyond that i dont see much point in arguing. show me a replay in which the worse player wins over a better one based purely on luck without the better player choosing a risky bo or screwing up otherwise, and how high the chances are of this working 3 times in a row to win a bo5.

i apologize if this looks like going a bit over the top, but to me everyone complaining about how zvz is dictated by luck is way over the top as well, and i at least try to bring forth some arguments.

edit: you said it yourself: luck is part of a game with imperfect information. thats absolutely true and i never said anything against it. but it is also not what we are discussing here. people say that luck decides games/matches and i say that it doesnt.

On January 22 2010 22:28 FrozenArbiter wrote:

Yes, but there is luck involved even with scouting. I don't play ZvZ, so I'll avoid using a ZvZ example, and go for PvP instead:
If player A chooses to open with 4 gate goon break and player B opens with fastest possible DT, is there not an element luck present here? A good % of the time, you will have no way to scout this happening.

People are going to take gambles (because they feel it's a calculated risk that gains them more than they lose, or because they are desperate) and sometimes they are going to pay off... Luck is present here.

ZvZ you can scout your opponent yes, but let's take a 4 player map - you start 5, opponent starts 1. If your opponent scouts down, and you scout left - is that not luck?


No, you can't predict the exact card that's to come, but you can certainly minimize your risk by other means - though not in the exact same way. If you play an extremely loose/aggressive style, you will have big swings (that is, you will have days where you lose a ton, and days where you win a ton) but as long as you play well, you will win in the long run.
If you play a more tight/aggressive style, you will have smaller wins and smaller losses, and they will be more constant. That is akin to playing a very snug/risk-free style in SC really.

So if you are on a limited bankroll, it's generally better to play a more TAG (tight aggressive) game, as it diminishes the risk of you going bust.

It's quite a bit different from the SC example tho, since in SC when you have an edge, you want to play "tighter" while in poker if you have an edge, you want to play looser (generally, you want to get in more situations where decisions need to be made and exploit your edge - but this isn't true if your opponent is playing too poorly - like if he's absolutely insanely aggressive or an extreme calling station, playing a bit more straightforward might be the best way to exploit his tendencies).


A bo5 is a pretty small sample when the skill difference isn't drastic.


It decides games, but only as one of many factors. It's certainly not the predominant one, in most cases (though I believe my two examples above, are predominantly luck based and you will find more of those in mirrors).


I guess it's a matter of definition - does luck decide games?

Yes, and no. Is it the biggest factor, most of the time? Certainly not. Is it a factor? Absolutely.

If you have a game between people of relatively similiar skill levels, then the variance is going to be big eitherway - and in a mirror matchup, it's going to be even bigger. There are more "oh fuck I'm dead" build vs build situations in mirrors than in say, PvT or TvZ.

If ret was playing against Jaedong I'd recommend he plays ZvZ and prays a lot.
If ret was playing against someone he's slightly better than, I'd recommend he plays TvZ (assuming his TvZ and ZvZ are approximately the same level).

There's just not as much variance to it, if you have a small edge over your opponent and just one game is decided by luck, well, that could change a 3-2 win to a 2-3 loss.

On January 24 2010 00:12 XsebT wrote:
When you're back on the foreign scene you should stop thinking "what am I best at" and start think "what do I enjoy the most", and that really isn't our decision. - Thou shall have fun!

On January 24 2010 01:09 Holgerius wrote:

When there's 10 000 dollars on the line it would be absolutely dumb to think about ''What do I enjoy the most''. He should definitely go with whatever he thinks gives him the best chance of winning.

On January 24 2010 01:09 Holgerius wrote:

When there's 10 000 dollars on the line it would be absolutely dumb to think about ''What do I enjoy the most''. He should definitely go with whatever he thinks gives him the best chance of winning.

On January 25 2010 09:18 ret wrote:
I will play Zerg thanks everyone for your input

On January 26 2010 09:30 0mgVitaminE wrote:
Your zvz was awesome at courage. I never saw your TvZ (nooobie) but 7 wins in a row seems good to me xD

On January 25 2010 09:18 ret wrote:
I will play Zerg thanks everyone for your input