Evolution 2009 Tournament Results

The 2009 Evolution Fighting Game Championships rocked The Rio Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada this past weekend, as fighting game players from around the world showed up to compete in arguably one of the largest and most densely high-level player packed tournaments ever.

The games available to compete in were Soul Calibur IV, Tatsunoku VS. Capcom, Guilty Gear Accent Core, Blazblu, Marvel VS. Capcom 2, Street Fighter III: Third Strike, Super Street Fighter II Turbo: HD Remix and of course Street Fighter IV. The attendance for the event was huge with entries for SFIV reported as high as 1100 players.

Great players from all over the world arrived to represent their respective countries, but most notably, Daigo Umehara from Japan and the surprise newcomer, Eduardo Perez from Puerto Rico. On the American front, west coast and east coast players were present as well, with notable players such as Alex Valle, Mike Watson, John Choi, David Sirlin, Graham Wolf, Justin Wong, Sanford Kelly and Martin Phan, amongst many others, making strong showings.

Although the weekend was filled with great moments and tons of great matches, most notably Sanford Kelly’s pair of victories over Justin Wong in Marvel VS. Capcom 2, and Takashi “Dan” Hukushi in Street Fighter IV, (with Cammy no less!) the gem of the tournament had to be Justin Wong and Daigo Umehara’s set of Street Fighter IV matches for the Evolution 2009 SFIV championship. Justin Wong, after being sent to the losers bracket in the finals, won the losers bracket after defeating Sanford Kelly and played a fantastic series of matches with Daigo, forcing a reset (Sending Daigo to the losers and starting a final set of matches.) Justin Wong showed a wide spectrum of knowledge of the game and his match-ups as well as an amazing ability to zone his opponents with his basic moves. Unfortunately for Justin, his skill was not a match for Daigo as he was unable to defeat Umehara’s Ryu after initially picking Abel, (which Daigo had some trouble with earlier but was able to defeat soundly in his subsequent match with smart use of his crouching strong (medium punch).) after being told by the crowd to change characters, Justin settled (surprisingly) on Balrog (boxer (Justin typically plays Rufus)) with which he had the most success, bringing the set down to the wire. Daigo was able to fend Justin’s tricky, powerful Boxer off and become the world’s first Street Fighter IV champion.

Here is a tournament results list for those who are interested.

Street Fighter IV Tournament Results

1. Daigo Umehara (Ryu)
2. Justin Wong (Rufus, Boxer, Abel)
3. Ed Ma (Akuma)
4. Sanford “Santhrax” Kelly (Akuma, Cammy)
5. Long “ShadyK” Tran (Akuma)
5. Eduardo “Vvv scrub” Perez-frangie (Boxer, E. Honda)
7. Takashi “Dan from Japan” Hukushi (Ryu)
7. Ricky Ortiz (Rufus)

Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo HD Remix Tournament Results

1. Hung “Afro Legends” Nguyen (Boxer, Dee Jay)
2. John Choi (Ryu)
3. Damien “Damdai” Dailidenas (Ken, Zangief)
4. Graham Wolfe (Boxer)
5. David Sirlin (Fei Long, Cammy, Dictator)
5. Louis “Thelo” Paquin (E. Honda)
7. Alex “CaliPower” Valle
7. Alex “Sin” Salguero

Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike 2v2: Final Results

1.Justin Wong (Chun Li) and Issei Suzuki (Yun)
2. Jimmy “Emphynaps” Tran (Urien) and Rommel (Yang)
3. Ryan “Fubarduck” Harvey (Chun Li) and Mark “Mopreme” Royogski (Ryu)
4. Alex Valle (Ken) and J.R. Rodriguez (Akuma)
5. Lee Cephas (Dudley) and Starboy (Ken)
5. Amir (Chun Li) and Thomas “The Pad Player” (Ibuki)
7. Mike Zaimont (Makoto) and Sanchez (Alex)
7. Ricky Ortiz (Chun Li) and Chang (Yun)

Marvel vs. Capcom 2: Final Results

1. Sanford “Santhrax” Kelly
2. Justin Wong
3. Michael “Ifc Yipes” Mendoza
4. Bill W
5. Marc “Madbooface” Ansay
5. Soo Chon
7. Jay “Ytwojay” Son
7. Erik “Smooth Viper” Arroyo

Tags: SFIV

Posted By: Jorge

RSS Feed.

http://golgotron.com NamelessTed

Dude, I was watching the ustream last night for the SFIV finals, it was fucking intense meng. By the end there were over 22k viewers watching like on ustream, it was nuts.

also, I don’t recall Wong picking Rufus when fighting Daigo. I know when he played everybody else he was playing rufus but int he final matchup He picked Able first and lost that game, then he was straight to Balrog and won that game making it 1 and 1. Then Daigo won the next game, and then Wong won the next 2 to win the match which caused the reset.

either way, it was fucking amazing to watch.
http://www.wakasm.com wakasm

Yeah, I was working on a freelance project and had the ustream open throughout most of the 3rd day. Watched the MVC tournament and on. It was pretty awesome.

I didn’t like how Justin Wong would celebrate all of his victories though… it seemed bad sportsmanship. I was pretty glad to see him lose. Again.

That said – the matchup was pretty intense. The Balrog switch was nice and it was awesome to see it go to the last set in the last match. That said – UStream Viewers are pretty crappy in the chat room.
Jorge!

Wak: Yeah, I am actually somewhat stumped as to how I feel about the character switching and console character dilemma. I kinda wish that there was a world-wide understanding of what we are all playing. Japan only plays arcade version of SF4 with no character changing, while everyone else plays the console version with character changing on loss… Not only that, Japan is at a total disadvantage when it comes to console specific characters. I think that Japan has to start playing the home version and that is seriously a lot to ask of them. article time…

PS: Yeah, Justin is really a freaking cocky turd. He is really good, but needs to be less of a weenie.
http://golgotron.com NamelessTed

When I was watching over the weekend there were a couple people talking about the console character dilemna. I am no expert on the topic at all, I actually just started watching. But, it seems to me that there should be no problem with people playing console characters.

Capcom put the characters in the console version, and the tournaments are running on the PS3 (stupid that they aren’t using the Xbox 360). If they are running a tournament on consoles, all characters are open game the way I see it. People from Japan just need to play the console version. Is it really too much to ask? I mean, they have the 360 and PS3 in Japan too.

As far as character switching, i thought that was kind of weird. I mean, most people end up just sticking with one character throughout the entire tournament it is weird when you see a person switch between matches and even in the middle of a match.

Let’s Make a Game! – SpongeBob SquarePants

Review – SteelSeries Diablo III Gaming Mouse

Let’s Make a Game! – Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

CES 2012: Our Best & Worst