Here’s a sample match from the EVO Super Street Fighter II Turbo finals from the Capcom booth at Comic-Con. A few notes on what youre seeing:

Play notes: This match features John Choi vs Jason Cole, playing in the winners finals to determine who moves on to the Grand Finals. Some notes on the play: Instead of a bunch of basically similar characters with palette-swapped heads, the characters in SSF2T have very distinct personalities with a huge number of totally different moves, and so are played in totally different styles. This leads to some really interesting matchups, and in many of them, one character may be considered to have some natural advantages against another. Dhalsim and Ryu are both very powerful characters, but top players generally think Dhalsim has the edge against Ryu—at least on paper. Most of these advantages stem from Dhalsims ability to counter Ryu’s fireballs. A lot of Ryu’s strength comes from using his powerful hadoken. Dhalsim, however, has lots of effective ways to counter Ryu’s fireballs, by using aerial drills, slide attacks, or just throwing some of fireballs of his own. You’ll see all of these happen in the match. On top of shutting down a lot of Ryu’s main offense, Dhalsim can also mount his own attack from a safe distance with his trademark long limbs, giving him the overall edge.

Dhalsim’s counters limit what Ryu can do, but he still has options. One of them is to try and charge up his meter to use the super fireball. The super will blow through Dhalsim’s fireballs and also has some invincibility, so it can even be used to attack right through limbs. This is a good strategy, but it isn’t enough all by itself, because it’s hard to charge more than about one super per round against constant pressure from Dhalsim’s pokes. That means you’re going to have to trade some blows with Dhalsim. It’s very hard to hit his limbs with Ryu’s own regular attacks, but fortunately Ryu has also got the mother of all punches: the (mostly) invincible dragon punch. The dragon punch will take out any of Dhalsim’s pokes, but the dragon punch doesn’t hit for very long, and if you miss, you’re wide open to counter attacks. To hit with it, you basically have to guess when Dhalsim is going to punch you. These uppercuts might appear somewhat random, and are sometimes referred to as “psychic dragon punches,†since it seems like the dragon puncher “psychically†read his opponent’s mind to know what he was going to do (or just got lucky). The reality is that top players are actually calculating very carefully when to attempt these attacks. There is always an element of guessing involved in this technique, but it is a very strategic and calculated kind of guess, based on careful observation and setting up your opponent to do certain things at certain times. Watch how Choi learns Cole’s attack patterns and predicts his next moves to increase his chances of connecting when he does these dragon punches that he needs to turn the tide in favor of Ryu.

Enough talking – keeping some of these match dynamics in mind, watch how these top competitors work to maximize their character’s natural advantages using spacing and mind games.

Footage notes: This is some “from the trenches†handicam footage (thanks to James Chen!), so here’s a bit of background on the rough edges. The players are playing on an unsexy-looking CRT monitor because we swapped out the 24†monitors we had in the ring for Lost Planet and Puzzle Fighter to avoid input lag caused by upscaling from the PS2 (we were playing Super Street Fighter II Turbo, from Capcom Classics Collection, Volume 2). Usually turning off progressive scan works but that wasn’t possible in this case, so we used the comparatively crummy-looking CRT monitor to insure perfect responsiveness. Some floor panels are also askew with some wiring shown. The natural look of the booth with the panels in place is seamless and pretty, but we had to remove the panels to hook up the CRT and get it wired into the video feed in a hurry, hence things look a bit rough around the edges. As for no fancy recliners, etc., there are of course chairs available, but many players choose to sit on the floor, and player comfort and perfect controls are our priorities. The pressures of a big tournament are hard enough so we try to accommodate any way the players choose to play. Many top players use their own custom-built or modded sticks, and prefer to place them on the floor to maximize stability. Other players (who you’ll see in subsequent videos) have different approaches to maximum stability, including bringing their own custom built steel stands. EVO isn’t always pretty, but, like the Aqua Teens, we’re #1 in the streets.

You can check out the rest of the videos over on Shoryuken.com, who now have available all the videos from the West Regional finals that took place in the Capcom booth at Comic Con.