Yo, Raff. Just thought I'd clear things up 'cause I know I bitched a lot at the tourney.
I respect your setup greatly. I am just a bad player on AmeriSticks. It's frustrating to me when I cannot do things I practiced so hard to do at home. It's frustrating when I think I'm pressing down and back to block, but am in more in the down or the back position instead, resulting in getting punched in the face/shin. The physical cues I have ingrained in my mind worked against me all night, even when I first started using my stick again. TooTall kicked my ass in that first match after the tourney, but I'm happy that next time I played him, I was able to win. From then on (and I mean no disrespect to the guy, 'cause he plays a good Ciel AND beat me in the tourney fair and square), I had 21 wins to 4 losses to Nick once I got back on my stick and was pretty much undefeated until we left for the night.
So I think while it's absolutely fair that you run tourneys the way you want, it's not exactly good for everyone to be forced to use the controller of your choice. Of course, on the cabinet, pad was the only other choice as setting up other sticks would have been aaaawkward. But here's the logic: It's a PS2 tournament for a Japanese game that uses cabinets that use Japanese sticks. I only play on a Japanese stick because I only play games that will be played on JP cabinets (Soul Calibur 3 is the only exception to that). Since it was PS2-based, B.Y.O.C. would have brought out more player skill. Seeing players play at their best is the best way to hold a tournament in my opinion.
But again, your house, your rules. I respect that. AmeriSticks-only just didn't help me improve my game any, which is what I was hoping to do. Hold another tournament with AmeriSticks only and I'll probably still come, but at least next time I won't enter expecting to mop up all the competition 
tru dat about the bitching.. shit was getting tiring.. i don't wanna sound or come off like an ass, but raff posted the rules about the tournament stating that there would be no stick switching or pad playing or anything like that. his cabinet was the only thing we would be playing on at all times.. rules were made by raff but still people felt compelled to bring their sticks, and say "I hate this", "I hate that", "Pad", "Japanese stick", yada yada yada and even choco, you had some balls trying to tell raff that there WOULD be stick and pad switching. now, you could of been just joking around but that shit ain't cool either way. i was listening to you the entire time, and was just saying to myself "wow sir, i honestly hope this is a joke." you read the rules, and yet still felt compelled to come and complain. raff's reasoning behind the no stick switching was time consumption pure and simple. that and the fact that i can understand why he wanted to get rid of pad playing because there are some, and not saying that any of you guys do this, but some people will use the extra buttons, and get 1 button throws, 1 button dashing, while people using sticks, are having to do these things manually, and what i consider to be much more skillfully.
but i can understand that you guys weren't use to the sticks because i've honestly been there many many times, where i've only had 5 to 10 minutes or even just 1 game to get use to fighting with their style of equipment.. but you guys had over two hours to get ready and get use to the sticks that we use.. anyone of you guys could of said, i need to get use to the sticks, so let's try and see what i'm doing wrong and how i can improve. if i had that kind of time in some tourneys i went to i know that the outcome of them would of been differant.. not saying i would of won but i would of been able to play a lot better then i had at that time. if you guys want to go to differant tournaments, anywhere, adaptability is going to be something youre going to have to learn. Now, i've told people straight out who run the tournaments, that hey, the tourney was awesome i had a blast but the sticks just weren't for me. but from what i was seeing, you guys were going on and on about how you hated american sticks, or hated that you couldn't use pad just about every 10 minutes, and shit was getting old quick.
but either way, it was fun to get to play you guys, since the only people raff, punker and myself get to play is each other. you guys got some good shit, with that game, and definitely made me think about playing some new characters. and like i said i'm just stating facts here and i don't want to come off like an ass or anything of the kind. i just think these things need to said or posted or whatevers, so things like this won't happen in the future and some sort of agreement can be made to accomidate everyone. just my 2 cents..
oh yeah, and no "John" ever shows up to the tourneys anyway.. My names been 2tall, or Tootall, or Too tall for years on end and even once i was the 2nd "unknown gamer" where i tried to keep the legacy of the masked mcdonalds bag gamer alive. but that's how it's been and that's how it'll be for the years to come.
