EPT
![[image loading]](http://cdn.makeagif.com/media/9-08-2014/I9AbKc.gif)
MMA
So, last month during one of the pro classes we were practicing low kicks, and the head coach wanted me and one of the other new guys to actually feel what a proper low kick feels like.
I go first, coach says "kick full power"... I'm like, really? "Yeah". So I kick. Not full power because I'm too nice, tho!
Coach is displeased; "REALLY full power". OK, so I do it again, still not full power but harder. This time he's satisfied.
Now my turn to "face the pain". But before we get to that, let me give you a quick stats run down. I am 180cm, 78kg. The other new guy is around 190~ and weighs between 105-110 kg. I have big legs for my size but this guys legs are tree trunks, ok?
Anyway, so he kicks and omfg the pain. But I shrug it off. Coach says "OK, good, continue". Now, here's where the miscommunication happens --- the guy assumes continue means "kick #2" since I had to kick twice, but the coach was satisfied with the first one and actually meant for him to continue practicing with controlled power...
So he kicks, hard, and I'm completely unprepared. It sucked a lot. It was kind of funny at the same time, the coach is like "what the hell are you doing? I said continue practicing not "do it again!", and I still finished the remaining 2 hours or so of class despite barely being able to walk.
This is the 3rd injury I've received from this guy now (bruised rib from a judo throw in clinch sparring, accidental chin-butt that gave me a cut on my head during grappling, and this low kick). He's a super nice kid tho (he's like 19 or 20, doing his military service at the moment) just fucking HUGE and strong haha. He's 3-0 as an amateur, next fight will be his pro debut, think he has a really good future --- he looks really natural when sparring and he is like the terminator with how durable he is.
Anyway, after about a week of the pain not really going away despite resting, and actually suddenly getting significantly worse, I ended up going to the emergency room (sunday, nothing else open) to get it checked. Nothing was broken thankfully, but the doctor said there was fluid build up in the knee and if I aggrevated it I could need surgery... The problem here was that me and my GF were supposed to go to Japan for 4 days.... the next morning.
So what followed was a crazy re-shuffling of tickets where my GF tried to find someone else to go with her (she didn't want to cancel the tickets, because she felt it was too big of a waste). Her sister agreed, and because she's apparently an angel she immediately got on a night bus (visiting relatives for Chuseok, so she wasout of town) only to sleep like a couple of hours before going to the airport together. Pretty awesome sister I think.
My leg, because life is like that, immediately started feeling better the next day (I guess thanks to the medicine I got), and by the 2nd day of rest I was walking more or less OK.
Some of you may remember I was supposed to fight end of last month, but while my leg was good enough to walk and train, it was still nowhere near 100% --- basically anytime anything hit my leg it'd basically give out, which makes fighting not a good idea. So cancelled that. We'll see when next opportunity comes up.
I did do some sparring with one of the pros tho, sans low kicks. At the end of an 8 hour class, me and two other guys took turns to spar 5 minute rounds (I thinK I only did 2, not sure, cant remember. But one of the other guys was the aforementioned 105 kg guy). The guy we sparred with is a featherweight, he walks around at about my weight (he's in really sick shape and makes a huge cut to get to feather, like most korean fighters), and all 3 of us were slightly bigger. Anyway, after 10 rounds he had racked up 10 body shot knockdowns (spread out fairly equally between the 3 of us haha).
Beastly <_<
So that was last month. This month Ive barely trained, first I had a cold for a week, then I came back, full of energy, running through the cage door to grab some water during a break, bounce in my step...... and managed to headbutt the doorframe, giving me a deep cut that necessitated ANOTHER trip to the emergency room, 4 stitches and another week of inactivity.
Just removed the stitches on friday, and had my first class since coming back, yesterday. Thankfully it was purely superficial damage.
Starcraft
So, since no MMA for a week I started off planning to play a bunch of SC2 in addition to my usual fare of poker...
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/EFINRhH.jpg)
Note: this is like a week old
That went pretty well. However, I've also managed to pinch my left ulnar nerve, and one of the activites the doc suggest I avoid until it heals, is excessive computer use. So I think I'm done playing SC2 for the next week or two at least <_<
I was going to make this post at the end of the season but I'll just do it now instead:
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/Q4jYm95.png)
Thoughts:
Initially I identified TvT as being primarily centered around 3 openings: 15 gas cc, reaper cc and gas first openings. However, quite quickly I found that 1) 15 gas cc is somewhat superfluous as a build compared to reaper cc --- it has some advantages, but it's significantly harder to play than both reaper cc and gas first, because it both gives up all early tempo (I always think of the Go terms Sente and Gote here, 15 gas is a definite Gote play) AND scouting. Playing aggressive builds (gas first doesnt have to be, but it can be) or builds with good scouting will give me more info which I think makes playing passive builds later easier (for example, I now prefer the passive flash/innovation gas first to more aggro gas first openings).
It's also less frustrating when you have good scouting and don't have to save scans or over defend etc.
I'd say 95% of these games were mech. As you can see my winrate in this matchup is really good, it's the only matchup where I'm consistently good in every stage of the game.
Btw, there's this Chinese terran on KR... I played him in my first week or so of coming back, and lost. I'm now 10-1 vs him. He's not bad, infact he's sound mechanically and he plays fine late game... it's just that he opens 100% of his TvTs with mine drop into expansion. Very confusing.
Talked to another guy who plays on KR and he said the guy has a team mate, a zerg, who plays the exact same opening every ZvZ as well. Weird team. I assume there's some logic behind it, because they are not bad players.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/iQjybcE.png)
Yeah.... I think defending blink allins takes more experience than I currently have, I frequently misjudge how much I need to spend on defense. Plus, while I occasionally manage to play a really solid TvP, my mechanics are just too inconsistent for this matchup (even worse TvZ, but we'll get to that). That being said, even though my winrate isn't great, I started getting a lot better at reading and scouting protoss in the past month or so.
I'm not sure if King Sejong Station is that bad for Terran, but it's a map that I really love but can't win on vs P for the life of me. The army in front threat -> warp prism in back is tough to deal with if you are both maxed. I think terran has gotten away with not making static defense vs protoss for like 4 years but the recent warp prism popularity has made me really appreciate turrets and random widow mines on approach paths
Widow mine <3![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/w3TSCu4.png)
TvZ my mechanics are atrocious. I'm just not mechanically sound enough most of the time to play a proper TvZ... every few dozen games I'll play out of my mind and really hit everything, but mostly... not so much. Thankfully hellbat builds are bullshit and I've got many free wins vs far superior zergs who didn't see it coming. Also lost to many horrible zergs because, like with blink allins, I tend to underestimate just how much defense you need to hold roach baneling :D
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/RBDETmm.png)
TvT has always been my best matchup, pretty much since I got to Korea until this day. A big part of that I think is because mech TvT has the most room to maneuver. Where TvP and TvZ are both very reliant on your timings being crisp and your mechanics on point, mech TvT is a more positional and slow paced matchup, that just suits me a lot better. In the past I was, usually (there were exceptions when I was a good student and had all the important timings down, such as during my first GSL run, at least for some of the builds) guilty of not paying enough attention to learning all the important timings, and nowadays my mechanics have deterriorated a bit, so TvZ and TvP are both tough.
Thankfully the KR ladder is dark and full of terro... terrans.
For funsies, map stats:
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/8IBp5Lg.png)
Quick thoughts: Overgrowth is the only map I'm not actually good at TvT... I think the short walking distance makes fuck ups instantly punished in mech vs bio. Nimbus is so good for terran, in general any map where I have a positive winrate or close to even vs P and Z, I'm pretty sure is insanely T favoured.
And if you are interested, here's the full spreadsheed, including a LOT of build orders with annotations:
Download
(Use right click -> Save As to download)
If you look closely under the TvP cheese section it actually includes an entirely new TvP cheese made by me... that I think is quite strong.
Speaking of cheese
To 2 rax or not to 2 rax
I've been wanting to do something like this: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/sc2-strategy/467952-starcraft-openings-and-game-theory
For the TvZ opening game... Watching so many zergs dying to proxy 2 rax, I feel like the build is either severely underused, zergs are misplaying, or zergs are under-utilizing pool first builds.
I tried to find data on how the various builds lined up, but the sample of pool first games especially was not very large...
http://spawningtool.com/research/table/?p1-tag=&p2-race=3&p2-tag=&p1-race=2&after_time=&before_time=&after_played_on=&before_played_on=
I had it in mind to just 50/50 2rax/reaper expand for my next 100 TvZs on ladder but since I wont be laddering for a while that project is on ice.
I do think this is a part of both Terran and Zergs game that applying game theory to could really improve. Especially if you are the 'safe, macro' type of player, not one naturally inclined to play mind games and do risky stuff, using this type of guide lines can help protect you from being exploited.
Anyway, that's for later I suppose.
Hearthstone
Since I was trying to avoid using my keyboard arm too much, I turned to hearthstone.... I'm not gonna write too much about it here. This says enough I think:
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/aXu38fn.png)
Most annoying game ever
[[[[[[ As an example, the other day I started off winning >10 buyins at poker, then went to play some heartsthone, proceeded to go like 0-6 vs hunter and the RAGE was real. Pretty surprised that I feel less annoyed about dropping a few thousand dollars than I do when the hunter 'well plays' you after getting that turn 5 lethal because you drew only your control cards.Btw, the priest deck that's 5-4 vs hunter, is a rage deck I made that includes 90% anti hunter cards
Anyway, fun game, but stress inducing D: I probably sent HayprO like the equivalent amount of text of a short essay just complaining about how much I hate Hunter.
In other news, I'm gonna be in Europe for a couple of weeks towards the end of November/Beginning of December. Berlin, Stockholm, and probably visit Dreamhack as well
Maybe I'll see some of you there.
