ST (13) - Kurahashi (Guile) vs. John Choi (O-Sagat)

[djshefu]

Good lord. I think this is the most Tiger spam I've ever seen from Choi. Then again I haven't watched alot of his other vids besides the one where Daigo's Boxer tore him a new one.

[sabishiihito]

One of the most legendary ST matches ever. On paper, there is no way Guile should win this fight.

[yyy12232]

By no means am I pro, but what's so good about spamming fireballs? I felt like punching Choi after watching that fight :P

[Inbred23]

@yyy12232 It's the single greatest tool for controlling both space and your opponent in ST and O. Sagat has the best fireball game out of every character. If he throws a fireball at you he is forcing you to either A) take chip B) jump (which can be punished) or C) make you throw a boom, which you can't do twice in a row, leaving you to choose from A or B when he throws the second fireball. There's more depth in mindgames with fireball wars, but that's the basics of fireball/space control in ST.

[TheManowarBabsi]

@Inbred23

je, anyway, its giving o.sagat a huge advantage, thats why he was "banned" in the eastern countries of competition. no doubt : o.sagat is imba. : D

[KillerNanny]

sagat is a spammer <.<

[Pandabearmadness]

someone please count how many times sagat threw fireballs. my guess is 46

[patrckhh20]

"Hm. There's one second left in the match. Maybe I should try mixing it up now..."

[evil99019]

I like the part when I heard TIGER!

[tavogp]

USA

[turdferguson2]

what a satisfying way for him to lose.

[Calibur316]

haha timeout, eat that choi!

[darksylux101]

Hummm.... needs more tigers......

[thejunkmanlives]

U gotta love how during the whole match ur not aware of the clock until it runs out. I wish sf4 was like that.

[guayaba209]

@thejunkmanlives i think everyone is always aware of the clock.

[thejunkmanlives]

@guayaba209 played some turbo yesterday and while ur in the middle of the action the clock is the last thing u think about. U never get a point where ur just siting there, sf4 matchs are alot slower paced.

[sakura4994]

@thejunkmanlives

Nah, actually good players are aware of time, health and super meter as well as positioning.

[thejunkmanlives]

@sakura4994 ur not geting it. In sf2 the clock is a factor but theres not alot of instances where ur just siting there doin nothing(like this match) where as in sf4 matchs that are decided by time have points in the match where nothing is happening .

[dxmakina]

@thejunkmanlives an experienced player is ALWAYS aware of how much time is left. all it takes is losing to time over once or twice against good players and then you wouldnt forget either. you should have a higher standard for yourself. just because the clock is the last thing YOU think about, doesnt mean you should generalize it to everyone. timer knowledge is a basic idea for experienced players. no one in the arcade is surprised when the timer gets to zero. everyone knows when its gonna happen

[thejunkmanlives]

@dxmakina where u aware of the clock when u were watchin? no. also im sure the clock only becomes a major factor until it clicks down to 20 seconds or if the guy is seriously goin for a time victory.

[dxmakina]

@thejunkmanlives YES OF COURSE WITHOUT A DOUBT I WAS AWARE OF THE CLOCK WHILE I WAS WATCHING. it did not surprise me for a tenth of a second. heres something that might blow your mind: i can estimate about when a dizzy will happen in sf4 and cvs2 without any numerical gauge. i can also estimate when the stun counter will reset itself. i learned these things from experience against tough players, where its extremely beneficial to know whether or not the next hit/poke will result in a won round.

[Aguitarnamedzero]

this was total zoning mind gaming insanity if I ever saw it. . . .5/5

[jonogunn]

SIGER SIGER SIGER! son-IGER!

[badasscheater]

I never get tired of watching Choi lose.

[sakura4994]

why are there so many complaints about the way certain characters are played? why do you want to discourage people from using certain strategies or characters? is the game too hard for you if those strategies/characters are used?

it also seems like only people at the casual or lower level complain about "cheap and dishonorable" play too- you almost never hear it at the top level. hmm, i wonder why.

[TnTKid54]

This was some awesome defensive and zoning skills shown here by kurahashi !

[oriramu]

heh.

[aabot756]

tbh Choi, thats what you get for palying like a fag, O.Sagaot is jsut boring and op

[ultracombo2]

Balrog and Dhalsim are both better than O.Sagat, yet it seems that the whole world seems to have a bitch fit when it comes to o.gat. Balrog and Vega are also both way easier to use than Sagat. Get zoned faggot.

[Toya3816]

I don't see what makes this Sagat player so good. You can just flowchart all day it seems.

[illasduck]

@Toya3816 Try throwing fireballs effectively. Really, in a game like this you basically die if your opponent gets in (not as bad as CE/HF but still brutal), so for a lot of characters FBing is the superior option.

And a bit of food for though, what might appear to be a FireBall flowchart is actually Choi reacting to a jump in too late, or Kurahashi having superior spacing whenever Choi goes for the counter. Choi had mindgames but Kurahashi was always just inside his optimal range it seemed.

[Toya3816]

@illasduck I guess I can't really expect much variety in a fight between the best zoners in the game. Btw I watched his fight against Shooting D which impressed me greatly (mindgamez all day) so that changes my scrubby opinion.

[bobaryanmage]

good attempt by saget but gule out played his tigers

[WALLSTREETKID7]

What O-Sagat means? (Original Sagat or something like this?)

[chargeNkill]

I'm not sure why you were thumbed down bro, but O. Sagat is basically old Sagat

[BradfordX2]

For those who dont know the reason why Watson could beat Tomo's guile with Ryu in HF is the fact that Guile in HF has 5 frames added recovery after throwing a sonic boom compared to CE....thats almost as bad as ryu, in other words ryu can jump in for free when guile does a sonic boom. In addition to this problem with the 5 added frames after a sonic boom, guile can't back hand after absorbing fire balls like he could in CE either. So that being said Mike made Tomo switch to ryu

[Jago7159]

very nice turtling/zoning

[Makingnewnamesisdumb]

Lol, all Guile did was spam, right guys!?

/noob

[Dashness]

Nothing I love seeing more than Sagat players getting beaten by Guile players. What a ridiculously hard match up for Guile. Having to face these lames on GGPO sucks, but it's so satisfying cornering these losers and smashing the bald muthafuckas face in.

[digulinoty]

OMFFFFFFFFG @_@

great fight 5*

[SMQonDemand]

This is one of the best, if not THE best ST match I've ever seen.

[SMQonDemand]

This isn't Muteki, this is Kurahashi

[SDSOverfiend]

Is Muteki Better? I watch his vid with against Diago and he looks pretty good.

[jerseyfame]

Everyone knows that Muteki is a beast but what about that dude from the 201, I hear his Guile is crazy

[SDSOverfiend]

Not you? Your Trash Jersey...your not prime time yet...

[jerseyfame]

Watch your mouth with the trash comment. I recall my Bison punishing your guile the first time we did that matchup. Took you 5 matches to adjust. Now when we play I still feel like I can beat you at any time. So if Im trash you are sewer drainage. Fact.

[jerseyfame]

nice victory...i respect it more everytime I watch it. Took precision to play Guile that well.

[Shady424]

Its a zoning/controlling space thing. Sagat's tiger shots have always been a major part in his dominance over the years. Even Remy's strategy in SF3 involves the same thing. He's not just randomly spamming, he's controlling the screen and hopefully trying to predict the opponent's actions... or something like that.

[branh0913]

It may look a little boring. But playing against O. Sagat will help your ST game trust me. You really have to learn to close space and find creative ways to get in against an O. Sagat player. I played against DSP O. Sagat at Final Round, at least I think it was DSP. It was really fun to try to get in on him. As a guile player it's one of my favorite matchups even if it's a little loopsided in O. Sagat's favor.

[XxGonixXFAN]

O.Sagat is banned everywhere now because of what you just said. Also he has the fastest recovery and highest damage. So you don't need to worry about him

[TrueSephiros]

The dumbass jap cock riding here really needs to stop, if anyone had a right functional brain, one would realize that since Sagat's debut in CE...he's always utilized Tiger Shots as his form of dominance. Only an idiot would call this an "american style" rofl.

Tell me a time when any good Sagat player "regardless" of race doesn't utilize Tiger Shots in ST to position and dominate with Sagat, then come back and tell me otherwise.

Choi Boy is the Man! CvS2 and ST Champ of Evo2k8!

[Emillll]

"Tell me a time when any good Sagat player "regardless" of race doesn't utilize Tiger Shots in ST to position and dominate with Sagat, then come back and tell me otherwise."

O Sagat is soft banned in Japan. The majority of the american players use O Sagat, they just wanted it to be easier to beat the Japanese because there's no other way they can do it.

[TrueSephiros]

Emilll, please, I understand O. Sagat is soft banned, however please don't argue this, it's absolutely ridiculous. If you noticed Daigo even used O. Sagat up against Kunai when he was Zangief in ST...so the notion of you riding the japanese players is funny.

Also, Choi is 2nd Gen, meaning SFII wasn't his game Alpha2 was (Remember, US>>>Japan in A2).

However if Kurahashi "had" played our true 1st Gen SFII players, it'd be completely different story...Tomo, and Jeff>>>ALL.

[Emillll]

Well I wouldn't use one example of Daigo using O Sagat to counter what I said, because what I said was a general statement about the Japanese and it applies the majority of the time.

Also I think Tomo and Jeff would actually do worse than these 2nd generation players did against Kurahashi.

[TrueSephiros]

Rofl, are you serious? Since when does Japanese players fall off the "not using OPed" characters before?

Should I start ramping about how in SBO2006 or what was it that 234089234908 people were riding CE. Dictator to try and get to the top?

Should we talk about CvS2 Blanka? My goodness, ALL of those guys are 10x worse then O. Sagat, and so what if US players pick O. Sagat, you want to put Japanese players on a pedestal simply because they soft ban O. Sag, get real man.

That's a lol excuse.

[TrueSephiros]

Also, guys like Tomo or Jeff would destroy players like Kurahashi, remember now, Jeff dominated Daigo back in 04 in AE...and this is Jeff 10+ yrs retired, and also the fact he wasn't used to the speed as well.  Watch Daigo use CE. Sagat and get man handled by Jeff's CE. Guile, now imagine a in his prime Jeff.

Even Kuni who came from Japan at the time of Tomo Ohira stated that Tomo would have dominated Japan if he would have went to play over there. So even Kuni vouches for Tomo's abilities.

[adagdag]

wow whered you get that statistic??

[kornymunky]

Tomo hasn't played Daigo, nice try.

[coolguy681]

@kornymunky

although tomo has never played daigo i believe tomo could beat daigo easily.

[kornymunky]

I doubt it would be easy, remember, Mike Watson was 2nd in the US when Tomo was in his Prime and Daigo has beaten Watson a number of times.

[coolguy681]

@kornymunky

The only reason why im saying this is because jeff schaefer was able to beat daigo many times and he had retired from street fighter 10 years ago. Jeff never beat Tomo in WW, CE, HF or Super. But he was able to beat Daigo at AE in 2004.

[kornymunky]

Yeah I saw those but Daigo was using characters like Bison who I know isn't his best character, they were just playing Casuals, Daigo loses to a lot of people in casuals that he beats regularly in tournaments.

[watsup516]

he used ST ryu once and lost bad. its on my fav list.

[shinjig]

in ST not HF. Two different games. Need we look back to AE when a retired and rusty Jeff Schaeffer pretty much split a set with Daigo?

[jerry6d]

Tomo never played Daigo. What a moron

[SDSOverfiend]

Jeff's CE. Guile? can i see vids of this? in fact i would like to know more about him.

[Emillll]

Also US is not better than Japan in SFA2.

[TrueSephiros]

US>>>Japan in SFA2.

Maybe you don't remember, however Valle went to Japan at the height of Alpha2 and completely destroyed everyone there.

It wasn't even a fair fight, Valle's A2 Ryu CC Valle combo was TOO GOOD. The only guy who could contend with Valle at the time of A2's peak was Choi Boi.

[Emillll]

And the sad thing is, Choi almost beat Kurahashi here, and even though Choi is a good player, Kurahashi is many levels above him, both in execution, awareness, creativity and reading of the opponent.

[Flowend]

Welcome to ST, it's a spammy, campy game.

[kuaieq]

stupid fat pig americans cannot beat glorious nipponese players in fighting games

[Gemberland2004]

cheeeeseeeeeeeeed out

[hoodloom22]

kurahashi could have won first round if he did sweep instead of medium kick @39 secs. Subtle things like that make huge difference in brutal game like sf.

[apollosfury]

wow watching choi spam tiger shots is pretty boring imo

[reversetriangle]

bahaha john choi got owned

[Shady424]

He got owned by a time out? Right...

[reversetriangle]

Yes, he did... What does round time have to do with anything? A win is a win especially against o.sagat. GTFO >

[MysticExile111]

Look at Guile close that distance despite being mobbed by Tiger Shots. The upside-down kicks that he used to dodge the low Tiger Shot and close the distance was incredible!

[surgingmotion]

Choi pwns the spacing and shit in this video blows my mind away

[xxEmpirionxx]

tiger tiger tiger tiger

I love how in the final round time is running out for Choi's tiger spams, and just when he probably realizes it, he ends up losing the match

its great to see how Kurahashi really worked his guile, unlike Mr Tiger shot VERY well deserved win

[adagdag]

i doubt he didn't realize that time was running out: he wanted to see if kurahashi would crack under the pressure and do something to get out of the spam. kurahashi knew he could sit out the rest of the match so all he had to watch out for was a throw. choi knew he was waiting to be thrown, so he thought he could tiger knee-> tiger uppercut to punish a tech. wrong choice, mindgame goes to kurahashi

[TheDivineSoldier]

Good call sir.

[kuaieq]

anyone who plasys O sagat is a faggot

[MexicanElite]

why??

[kayinnasaki]

It's not like Japanese Ryu players don't spam the crap out of things when possible -- or two japanese Guile players don't throw sonic booms EVERY MOMENT OF EVERY DAY. O.Sagat is boring, it has nothing to do with Choi or American players.

[rocknflip66]

it would be really difficult to try and go against the low tiger shots especially how john choi play's his Sagat in a tournament, but Kurahashi made it look so smooth & easy. EPIC

[Pandaman64]

At 1:26, what's going on there? Is guile F+MK over a fireball, or is the fireball appearing behind him?

[st1kupk1d]

f+mk is able to go over the fastest low tiger shot. the timing is somewhat difficult/risky

[BluesASC]

Mr. Tiger should of done less tiger

[to0nstyle]

So epic.

[Hattorii009]

Yes yes I agree.

[EffullBao]

Thank you SO much for uploading this. I've been looking for this match. This is the very reason I started ST. This is great reference material.

[manaheke]

Amazing!!

[blinkycc13]

Agree. Guile deserved that win.