Full credit for this goes to Ryan "Filipino Champ" Ramirez, who suggeted I try to check out a new statistic. Whether this will result in anything remains to be seen, but I think we have something legitimate.

Filipino Champ's idea was to look at what happens on wake-up. What do players do in that situation? I didn't think much of it at first because my thought was "Players fall down 500 times in a round, so what?" But as I thought about it more, it seemed to make sense. Falling down and wake-up can be big turning points in a contest, especially late.

I decided to do my first test on last night's Wednesday Night Fights 2.4 finals match between Floe and Alex Valle (stats of the match are here, if you'd like). 

I decided to break down the wake-ups much like how I do with EX meter usage. In this case, a player either got up and did nothing (Empty), a player blocked an attack (Block), or a player hit their opponent (Connect). If a player whiffed on a move, it would be considered Empty. If a player got hit on wake-up, it would also be considered Empty, but I would make a special note of it.

So how did the two players stack up? Here you go:

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On the latest Stats Series podcast, I mentioned how OnlineTony (pictured, right) dominated in combos as he won all four championships in the Wednesday Night Fights Arcade Edition first season.

But how does his 244 combos in four matches compare to others? I took a random look at several tournament series just to see.

Keep in mind that the numbers of the other tournament are for multiple players, and OnlineTony is just one man putting up 244 combos.

• The final four matches at Evolution 2011: 116 combos (128 less)
• The last four Guard Crush finals: 227 combos (17 less)
• The four Rise of the Web Warrior finals: 100 combos (144 less)
• Summer Jam top four: 123 combos (121 less)
• Shadowloo Showdown top four: 135 combos (109 less)

Picture by Michael Yu. no comments

It's Wednesday, meaning that the Starbase, Guard Crush and Wednesday Night Fights series resume.

I wanted to post a quick note regarding the last five finals for Starbase and Guard Crush. Are there noticeable differences between the East Coast and West Coast events?

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Since there was no winner in the Get Your Tournament contest, that doesn't mean I'm going to go spend the $20 Chipotle gift card (even though I'd like to, because it's Chipotle). I'm going to run another contest!

Hopefully, we'll get a winner this time.

Starbase Arcade plays host to a weekly tournament series, and the guys at iPLAYWINNER bring you the crispy broadcast.

Here's the challenge: Pick the winner of this Wednesday's Super Street Fighter IV tournament at Starbase Arcade.

Since I'm guessing a few players will get picked a couple times, the tiebreaker will be whom that person defeated in the championship.

As an example:
Player X wins. She beat Player Z in the championship.
Player X wins. She came back from losers to beat Player Z.

To win the contest, all you have to do is get the champion correct. In case more than one person gets it correct, then we'll use the tiebreaker. If there's still a tie, then I'll hold a random drawing Thursday afternoon to determine the winner.

The winner will receive a $20 gift card to Chipotle.

In case you need help, the previous champions have been Hoodaman (last week) and Filipino Champ (won the two previous before that). Crizzle has also reached the finals.
•••

Here's some additional rules:

• Again, I'm only shipping this to the U.S. Sorry, international followers.
• If the tournament is canceled or does not finish before a winner is a determined, then the contest is off, and I'll run another contest at a later time (oh please don't let this happen).
• The person you pick must win the tournament outright. If your pick resets the bracket and then loses in the second championship match, it does not count.
• You can't enter this contest if you're entering the tournament, sorry.
• If the tiebreaker is needed and nobody gets the tiebreaker correct, then everyone involved in the tie is put in the drawing.
• Your first guess is your guess (I will screencap the guesses as they come in).
• The deadline to enter is 7 p.m. PT Wednesday!
• Good luck!

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... NOBODY!

I can't believe it.

In this contest, I asked people to guess the winner of the Daigo Umehara vs. Poongko match and guess the total amount of first-hits (first attacks) the winner would have. At stake was a $20 gift card to Chipotle.

More info after the jump (if you haven't watched the match yet and don't want to be spoiled, don't go to the jump).

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"Whatthefat" on Team Liquid's forums posted a hefty analysis, breaking down economic management between different skill levels in Starcraft II. It's a long read but well worth it. I found it interesting because it allows me, a noob still learning the game, to understand why players act the way they do and what to look for at certain parts of a match.

Go here for the full breakdown.

Like others in the community, I am fascinated by many of the questions pertaining to macro and overall skill. Is there a significant difference between Grandmaster and Master level players in how consistently they make workers? What about Bronze and Silver level players? Grandmaster level players are presumably better at spending their money than other players, but how much better are they than Diamond level players, and how do Diamond level players compare to Bronze level players? Finally, how does income relate to unspent resources exactly, and is it possible to define some sort of approximate measure of macro skill to assess self-improvement?

Graphic by Team Liquid. no comments

It's been a while since I've run a contest of any form, and I really wanted to do something before the 5-year anniversary of the site. So with that in mind, I'll be running a contest right now.

Daigo Umehara and Poongko will meet up in a 19-game series (First to 10) this weekend on Topanga TV. I think it's going to be the most-anticipated salty runback of all time, perhaps surpassing Daigo Umehara vs. Arturo Sanchez from 2010. 

A FT10 is a grind, as many of you fighting game fans well know. It's never over, even after someone grabs a huge lead; several times during the Beat By Contest qualifier and Godsgarden tournament series, players who had comfortable leads all of a sudden found themselves tied.

Here's the challenge: Pick the winner of the match AND how many first-hits he gets in total.

The winner of the contest is the one who picks the winner and comes closest to that player's first hit win total without going over. 

The winner will receive a $20 gift card to Chipotle. 

Here's some help if you need it: Because it's a FT10, that means there's going to be at least 20 first-hits (unless they pull a Yosen and Toname). By the way, first-hit trades will count. The maximum a player could get is 57 (All 19 games going 3 rounds).

Here's some more help: When they met at Evolution 2011, each player got two first-hits. Oh, I guess that doesn't help.

As an example:

Daigo wins. He gets 30 first-hits.
Poongko wins. He gets 30 first-hits.

You can post your answer in the comments below. One guess per person, and your first response is your first guess. Here's some more rules for the contest.

= = =

• I'm shipping this to the US only. Sorry, to all the international people.
• The winner will be announced as early as Sunday night, although to double check everything, it could likely be a couple days after.
• The broadcast will likely be recorded. In the event that any part of the match is unavailable, I'll have to cancel the contest (but I will make it up on a future stream later in the week).
• In the event of a tie, a random draw will determine the winner.
• Your answer must be posted on this page, not on twitter, facebook, etc.
• The result of the first-hit does not matter, as long as they get it. What matters in terms of wins/losses is the outcome of the match. 

= = =

The contest ends Saturday at 5 p.m. PT.

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After watching Guard Crush 19, I have posted seven of the last eight Guard Crush finals matches (17 is missing). You can check it out on the metatag on the Fighting Game Stats database.

Here's some interesting notes about the last five Guard Crush finals:

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Statisticians, I believe, are born out of curiosity. In trying to figure out what kind of stats I would be doing in Starcraft II, I was looking at what wasn't being done and what I was curious to know. After watching a few rounds of play, there were a couple things that came to mind, one which I'll share here.

Perhaps the first thing I wanted to know after seeing all of these matches was how successful players are when getting attacked on their base. I partially did this for the finals of MLG Raleigh, but I really put this to the test during the IGN Pro League Season 2 finals between White-Ra and Nerchio. Here's how it broke down:

• First-attacks: Nerchio 4, White-Ra 0
• Total attacks: Nerchio 12, White-Ra 9

The match broke down like this:

Round	Winner	White-Ra Attacks	Nerchio Attacks
1	White-Ra	2	1
2	White-Ra	2	1
3	Nerchio	3	5
4	White-Ra	2	5

Nerchio seemed to turn it up in the final two games, especially the final one where he seemed to have sold the house in order to stay alive in the tournament. However, White-Ra was able to hold down the attacks, and the announcers believed White-Ra could have held back even more attacks by Nerchio in the final game if needed.

So is total attacks a great indicator of success? This is only the second match I've ever charted, so I'm not sure. It could be like combo rate in fighting games, where it is a great indicator of success (if you're out-comboed in a round, you have less than a 9 percent chance of winning). As I chart more matches, I'll be able to see how great of an indicator it is.

At MLG Raleigh, the player who had the most attacks won every round. Overall, Bomber posted 11 attacks, and Coca had 13, but for Coca, eight attacks came in the first game, which he won. Bomber also had the first attack in every game in that championship match.

As I try to figure out what will be in my database, I'm sure I'll be keeping total attacks as part of my stat tracking. I have a couple other numbers from the IPL Season 2 final, and hopefully I'll get a chance to share them soon.

In the meantime, feel free to tell me what kind of stats you'd like to see me track. I'm still learning the game, and I'll take into consideration all kinds of suggestions.
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Hoodaman has reached the finals of the past two Super Street Fighter IV tournaments at Starbase Arcade, and I noticed something immediately while watching the three championship matches (two with Filipino Champ, one with El Cuban Loco). Hoodaman really likes using EX meter once he gets it.

I can't remember too many players that use EX meter the moment he or she gets it the way Hoodaman does. He's a much different player in different EX situations.

I mentioned a lot of this on today's Stats Series podcast, but I wanted to show it to you here as well.

Numbers after the jump ...

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