HAV's "playing to learn"

[samurai black]

PANIC ULTRA is top tier

[Rorooze]

I think what he is getting at, was that the guy he was playing really had very little chance of winning.  At that point he was presented with an oppourtunity that is far and few between.  He was low on life, under tournament style pressure, in the last round.  So instead of trying to figure it out and learn from an experience that you come across verry little, he basically threw the whole outcome of the round on a chance random ultra.

I guess what I take from the example is that the gief was obviously being outplayed, and wasn't going to win anyway due to player skill/experience disparity.  So why throw away a chance like that on a random chance to swin a round when you could have used it to level up.

I guess that's just the difference between the 'hardcore' that see EVO as the only competition thats about 'playing to win' with everything else as 'playing to learn' and the casual who feels that the ranbat is the time to 'play to win'. Whats the point in the casual player who never intends to go to EVO 'playing to learn' if he never gets to 'play to win'?

It's all relative.

[Lennysaurus]

Yeah.  That's pretty profound Rorooze.  I think that some people forget that people are into it for different reasons, and have different aspirations.

Hmmm... ya'll got me thinking hard now lol!

[electric]

Yes it's all relative, but what HAV is trying to get across is that 'playing to win' is pointless when your knowledge of HOW to play to win is based purely on trying to mash your best reversal at any given opportunity.

Say you play Rufus. Every time you get meter, your fears go straight out the window. Why ? Because you have the saviour of all saviours... EX Messiah - NOTHING can stop you. You're up against a Ryu who knocks you down and then continues to put on the pressure, so what do you do ? Mash it out... You've used your get out of jail free card and it worked a treat! Hooray!

A few seconds later, he puts you in the same situation and you glance at your EX meter - you've got plenty of meter to burn, so you mash out EX Messiah again... This time, Ryu baits that shit and punishes HARD. This continues until you are dead.

Sure, you can say "but the next time I won't mash"... but then you're in this predicament where if you had just played patiently and observed what he did at that first knock down, instead of mashing out Messiah, you would have a better idea of what would you could do to get out of the situation as well as learnt what tendencies the opponent you're playing has. Maybe he would have gone for a tick throw had you just blocked... The next time that junction comes up, you can watch for the tick throw and escape for free, instead of wasting your bar and potentially getting wrecked for it.

Also: Good point about people having different perspectives... Personally, I identify with the article because I don't really mind losing... I just want to be a better player - to me, that means analysing opponents faster and more accurately. If I can make an educated guess when playing and it pays off, that means more to me than a W

[Rorooze]

Electric: I completely agree on the mashing of reversals being a bad thing when trying to suss out an opponent. But I don't think that is part of the playing to win or playing to learn mantra.

I don't mind losing to improve, but if I don't get the chance to put my increased skills to the test by playing to win, whats the point? I don't think you can tell me you'd be happy losing every game provided you were getting better? How do you know you're getting better if you lose every game?

Conversely, if everyone is 'playing to learn' then when it comes to the time to 'playing to win' all your opponents won't be doing punishable or silly stuff and you'll potentially have a much harder time getting in or playing against a more 'serious' playstyle.

[electric]

I don't think playing to learn and winning are mutually exclusive. Sure, winning is great - I'll punish every bad move an opponent does in order to win - but just because I'm "playing to learn" doesn't mean I'll just sit there and block all day while Sagat is 40 feet in the air in the middle of a whiff Tiger Uppercut.

Also going by this, if you're truly getting better, you WONT be losing every game - otherwise you're not getting better at all. I think you're confusing "playing to learn" with "turtle up and don't go on the offensive"

To me, playing to learn means more than just blocking. It means concentrating on specific things that you have to deal with, identifying them, and then reacting accordingly the next time they come up. In a best of 3, double elim tournament, why NOT use the first round to test things out ? I don't think you can say "ok, that casual match 10 mins ago was playing to learn, and now I've learned everything I need to know for this particular matchup/person/playstyle" - you need to be able to adapt DURING a game. Whoever adapts the fastest wins.

Again... if I know my opponent likes to use, say, Tiger upper xx FADC throw, and I find that out early in the set, I'll take an educated guess and Tornado Throw them the next time it comes up... If I just did Tornado Throw every time without thinking, I'd take an uppercut to the chin and hadn't learnt anything.

[[NIUE] BIRRY WONG]

HAV is focussing on 'playing to win' in the long term, which ultimately is probably the more useful compared to the people he his talking about, who are focussing on 'playing to win' in the short term. Yes, you might win that round with your random ultra, but down the track, you have learned nothing, and havent improved at all.

There is a time and place for both. Last round of tournament finals, i dont care about learning, i care about winning. So if my best option is to random ultra (i realise the flaw in this logic.) then fuck you asshole im gonna do it.

Casual matches are a bit different. Learn the patterns and options. If this means throwing away a win or two, thats fine. If it helps you where it counts, go for it. Its like when i play fuerte. I deliberately get hit by things sometimes to gauge my opponents patterns. I will also quite often stop myself mid combo to see whether they're mashing reversal or trying to jump out/counter me, so that i can land an even bigger punish.

eg. i land a focus. I rsf 4 times, then run back and stop. Ken's dragon punch soars high into the air. I RSF him again when he hits the ground, but this time i finish with a slide. Thats twice the damage i wouldve got had i just ended the first RSF with a slide.

Sometimes sacrificing stuff, like the guaranteed damage of an RSF into slide, or winning a couple of casual games can help you out a lot more than just lolultraing for the win.

[maelgrim]

I think the article is good and agree mostly.
Though I do find it amusing that he is accusing his opponent of resorting to a random ultra to win.
He did get hit by it and lost the round, who's to say his opponent didn't use some skill to see the opportunity & take it & that his opponent didn't learn something from that.

in my mind that specific example highlights how poor the ultra system is.

I do agree with the point he is trying to make with the article as whole though.
I also agree that it is all relative.

Yay blocking!

[HoneyBadger]

The point is that the dude didn't beat him in a single round except the one with the ultra, making it seem pretty random.

One thing I don't like about this article is that he doesn't comment on not getting in the mixup in the first place. Obviously you need to know how to escape and deal with the pressure and mixups but I think it's also important to put more of an emphasis on not getting in the position for an easy knockdown/getting cornered in the first place.

[CrazyMobius]

I think the article is a bit presumptuous. I agree that a Rankbat is not the time to 'play to learn'. I mean you learn where you can but if you want to place you have to take risks. And in the example given it even paid off.

I think there is value in both styles of playing. Playing to win EVERY single game WILL help you learn but in a different way than prioritizing testing moves and learning properties of moves. Playing to win every match you play will help develop reflexes and dealing with pressure a lot faster than 'playing to learn' and then the 'playing to learn' style players will have to catch up in that regard anyway.

Also I don't believe the writer when he comments that he feels only Evo matches are real. How would one hope to place anywhere at Evo if they hadn't even had a real match before?

[CrazyMobius]

HAV is focussing on 'playing to win' in the long term, which ultimately is probably the more useful compared to the people he his talking about, who are focussing on 'playing to win' in the short term. Yes, you might win that round with your random ultra, but down the track, you have learned nothing, and havent improved at all.

On this note. A lot of the people who are playing to win in the short term best do it now because they probably won't even be playing Street Fighter in the long term.

[moose!]

HAVs just been ripping off Ryu win quotes.

I prefer
"Your moves are deadly... they are boring me to death!"

[moose!]

"You don't have to be big to be a big loser"