There was one player missing from my player database until two weeks ago, when he made an appearance at a tournament of which he co-won. That was Ryan "Gootecks" Gutierrez.

As I was watching him play, the everlasting debate of whether getting the first hit continued to play in my brain. Does it matter?

After a few weeks of dipping, the overall average has climbed up steadily. It is now at .587. The average among last four tournaments I've posted, which now in the database, is at .611.

Gootecks was at The Box Arena Team Ranbats 1.5 tournament two weeks ago. In the Top 8, he had a .769 first-hit win percentage, which is above the average. So for him, getting the first hit eventually mattered.

Daigo Umehara, the heralded one, has a .699 first-hit win percentage in more than 130 rounds of tournament play.

Justin Wong was at .761 prior to Saturday's Summer Jam tournament in the Northeast, which he ended up winning.

Does getting the first hit matter? These three guys have successfully turned it in their favor. And I could keep going on and on about the top players, the tournament champs who are above the curve.

There's a lot of statistics out there in competitive games, some which I'm still trying to figure out, others which I have established fairly well to this point. The first-hit debate is something that might last for a while. I mean, it's only .585 right now. Maybe it will forever stay in the .580s. Maybe it rises like it has with the last four tournaments.

For now, does having that extra 8.5 percent matter to someone if they get the first hit? Some people might not care because of various factors (opponent, status of match, etc.). Others might see it as a necessary.

I don't think I, if I started playing competitively tomorrow, could turn away from it. To know that Daigo wins a round every 7 out of 10 times he gets the first hit is huge to me, and I know I can't let him have the early advantage.

Any type of knowledge helps, at least that's how I see it.

Larry "DEHF" Holland had his moment in the national spotlight last weekend, when he took first place at Apex 2010, the biggest grass roots Brawl tournament this year. Almost 300 players took part in the tournament, some coming from overseas.

While DEHF is considered one of, if not the best player on the West Coast, there were many other contenders poised to take home the title. And yet, he stood tallest in the end, holding on by defeating Japanese player Brood in the finals.

Perhaps a win like this, with thousands of people watching, can boost the community. Maybe it brings in a new breed of Falco players. Maybe it shows that a major championship can be won without using Meta Knight. Or, maybe something else special happens.

GLENN: I was told there weren't too many West Coast players that went. Did that put extra pressure on you to do well because of that, or was there less pressure?

DEHF: It put on more pressure for me, I didn't want to place low like I did at Pound 4

GLENN: Did you know Japanese players were coming, and did you hope to play against them?

DEHF: I knew the Japanese players were coming and I wanted to play all of them at least once, especially Rain, the best Falco in Japan.

GLENN: What was your approach to playing against Brood, and was it based off of seeing what he did against M2K and Ally?

DEHF: Not really, I was actually pretty confident about playing Brood. I get a lot of experience in the Olimar match up from Rich Brown, one of the best Olimar players in the U.S.

GLENN: Did it throw you off that it was an Olimar user you were playing against in a grand finals, and not a typical top-tier/MK character?

DEHF: It did, I don't think there's a been a national tournament where a Metaknight wasn't in grand finals.

GLENN: How did you celebrate the win, or did you?

DEHF: Nope, I haven't really celebrated yet. I haven't even cashed the check from winning, but I plan on doing both soon.

GLENN: I know a few people not in the community were watching this. Do you think a tournament like this can bring in new players?

DEHF: Of course, especially since it shows that you don't have to use MK to win a tournament.

GLENN: On a similar note, seeing this type of tournament happen, with so many players and viewers, what can the community do to capitalize on the success? Should there be an outreach to new players, or should there be another big major immediately, or something else?

DEHF: I think the community should work on getting new players in the scene. A tournament like this should breathe new life into the community.

GLENN: Where do you go from here? MLG? More random tournaments?

DEHF: I'm going to all of the MLGs. I don't have any plans about going to any other tournaments yet.

GLENN: Are you signed onto a pro gaming team? If not, do you want to? Have you tried to get onto a team?

DEHF: I'm not signed to anything yet. I want to be, but haven't really looked into it much.

Gamestop returns with its second Battle of the Gridiron tournament series, and they're teaming up with the GGL to run part of it. Most of this year's tournament series will be done online, so be sure to have an Xbox Live account handy.

Out of the thousands expected to compete, 16 players by way of the online and live competitions will compete in the Finals Tournament in an NFL city to be determined. The winner will receive $3,000, second place $1,500 and third $500, according to Gamestop.

Players can participate in the Live-online portion or the strictly-online tournament, run by the GGL.

The Live-online competition

This tournament begins Aug. 21 at almost every Gamestop in the nation. Go here to see what stores qualify.

In this event, every store will run a single-elimination tournament, with only the winner advancing to Round 2 - in past years, as many as four players would get out to Round 2, so keep in mind that each store is going all the way this time. The winners of the live tournament will compete in Round 2, which is an exclusive online single-elimination tournament that starts Sept. 12. It will be a ladder competition that lasts until Oct. 16. The top eight players based on ladder points will advance to the Finals Tournament.

The strictly-online competition

This tournament begins Sept. 12 on the GGL site. Players that competed in the live tournament have until Aug. 24, everyone else has until Sept. 11. Those that already have a GGL account can use that.

This is also a ladder competition, with the top eight players after Oct. 16 advancing to the Finals Tournament.

Our tournament tier list has been updated. I watched another 1,400 rounds and, as I promised, would update the tier list because I broke 6,000 rounds. You can head over there and continue the debate.

By popular request, I added a couple more tidbits to create a bigger window of publicity to it. You can now see each characters' frequency of winning with more than 50 percent health remaining. Also, I included a graphic that has the raw numbers, so head to the tier list page to check that out.

There isn't much change at the peak. The top four characters remain in order. The biggest movement comes in the middle of the tier list. The breakdown:

• Characters that moved up:10
• Characters that moved down: 14
• Characters that didn't move: 10

For those that wanted Hakan, you have your Hakan, and he enters the list in 35th. The one guy that used him at Evolution on the broadcast accounts for the Hakan usage. I'm told there's more recent Hakan tournament play that's been recorded, but I haven't seen any links, so hopefully I see some soon.

Adon is no longer the winningest character. He was at .591 and now he's dropped to .507. It could be that opponents are starting to figure him out, or that the field is getting saturated with Adon usage.

The winningest character is now Honda, at .571.

With Dan being used in two tournaments recently, I thought he could get out of the 30s. But he's 31st. That's still good, considering he was 34th.

The next tier list update will come at 7,000 rounds.

The Get Your Tournament statistical player database has been updated. The following tournaments have been added to it:

• Starbase Arcade, Aug. 4, all videos from the broadcast by iPlayWinner
  
• Guard Crush 5, all videos from Team Spooky
  
• Afro Dojo, Aug. 5, Top 8 only
  
• The Box Arena Team Ranbats 1.5 tournament, Top 8 only

The remainder of the Afro Dojo tourney as well as The Box Arena tournament will be added in the coming days. With those additions, there will be more than 300 players on this list.

I want to thank those that have pointed me out to some tournaments that went under the radar, but which have videos. I'll get those up as soon as possible.

Also, aesthetically, I eliminated the different charts, as well as percentages. All of the statistics are on one page.

Go check it out here.

The latest episode of Cross Counter deals with a Cody vs. Claw matchup. Hit up the video and listen to what Mike Ross and Ryan "Gootecks" Gutierrez have to say as they watch two players go at it.

The VG Bootcamp group has started to post videos from Apex 2010. There's plenty of action from both the Melee and Brawl tournaments during the weekend, so check it out. Below is arguably the last best match of the tournament, Mew2King vs Brood.

Hit the jump for the remaining three videos of this match ...

C. Viper will be added to the iPhone version of Street Fighter IV, Capcom announced. She'll be available via download and it's no charge. Here's a video of her in action.

Roger Dodger over at iPlayWinner has a great commentary on overcoming burnout. He has several suggestions; I've done some of those and they worked out very well.

Here's the first suggestion:

Take a break – This is the most obvious answer but the time you spend while taking a break will be the most important decision you make. You don't want to take too long of a break because you still want to keep the muscle memory in your fingers. A good time frame is a couple days up to a week. Any time after that of not playing you will start to loose your mix up game.

Go check out the remaining tips over at iPlayWinner.

Madden Gras is this year's launch party for Madden 11. EA Sports is hosting the all-day event in New Orleans.