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Tourney Nerves

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Hilary

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Or even anxiety in set play, ranked, whatever.

How do you as a player deal with this?
 
Think of/treat every match as a casual or as a tournament. That way, the change in atmosphere will affect you the same.
 
I think nerves come from being afraid to fail. I've been trying to get into the mindset of being alright with losing, but also being confident in my skills. Before a match (or math test), I think "I probably won't win, but I'm going to do my best!" Got no nerves at evo. Okay, well, I went 0-2 in melee, but I aced my last math class. :)
 
Everyone is an idiot until proven otherwise. Someone told me this and I use this mentality when I go into matches. It helps me get over my nerves, though sometimes it takes me one game to get used to playing in a tournament environment.
 
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Just remember that if you fail, everybody will know so put extra stress on your self and the mindset that you have to win.
 
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Stop having tourney nerves so you can OS tourney nerves if you lose.

I don't really get tourney nerves I get tourney cockiness.

If you're feeling real nervous though try stepping out for a minute and collect your thoughts I'm sure that's allowed.
 
yaboi dekillsage gave me some good advice one time. The way to get over your nerves is to simply not give a fuck. Not giving a fuck is basically why I'm constantly in going ham mode, and whether I'm playing in quick match or some tourney, I'm chill as hell.
 
You can only try mitigate the nerves by getting used to the tournament experience. What I do is that I play as many fighting games as I can as well as I can so that I get the most tournament experience as I can, and that's helped heaps.

Also regular online ranbats can help get you in the mentality of "I just lost to this guy once, and I HAVE to beat him twice now to stay in the tournament", or "I have to reset the bracket on this guy" or even "I have to beat this guy before he resets the bracket". It's a matter of practising the mindset and finding out what you need to do to keep your shit together in the situation, which as far as I know can only really be learned in the situation itself.
 
Hilary said:
How do you as a player deal with this?
BURNING SPIRIT AND BRAVADO.
 
I have this same problem, everytime i go to a small tourney that is being streamed or even playing with really good friends in a competitive fashion i got really nervous and i start shaking my hands and droping every single combo,dumb assist calls and sometimes mashing...

what is the most bizarre and frustrating is,when i go to losers round that didnt get streamed, i play 1000x better, i know im even better than this but i really dont know how to get past this "tourney nerves", and its a lot more frustrating when there is lots of ppl cheering for you and you just play the dumbest way possible.
 
Cash said:
I have this same problem, everytime i go to a small tourney that is being streamed or even playing with really good friends in a competitive fashion i got really nervous and i start shaking my hands and droping every single combo,dumb assist calls and sometimes mashing...

what is the most bizarre and frustrating is,when i go to losers round that didnt get streamed, i play 1000x better, i know im even better than this but i really dont know how to get past this "tourney nerves", and its a lot more frustrating when there is lots of ppl cheering for you and you just play the dumbest way possible.
Do the thing I said 2 posts above this one, seriously I wasn't trolling this shit works
 
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Cash said:
I have this same problem, everytime i go to a small tourney that is being streamed or even playing with really good friends in a competitive fashion i got really nervous and i start shaking my hands and droping every single combo,dumb assist calls and sometimes mashing...

what is the most bizarre and frustrating is,when i go to losers round that didnt get streamed, i play 1000x better, i know im even better than this but i really dont know how to get past this "tourney nerves", and its a lot more frustrating when there is lots of ppl cheering for you and you just play the dumbest way possible.

They never fully go away, but they diminish with time and more tournaments entered.
 
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mcpeanuts said:
Have this playing on a continuous loop:
At Evo, someone I forget to me:
'I got 20 on McPeanuts listening to chiptunes right now'
'Dude that's a 10 - 0 Matchup free'

Crank that shit
 
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When I play I tend to purely focus on the match at hand, sometimes even forgetting I'm in a tournament during the more intense moments. I guess I just get into the zone and drown everything else out.
 
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gllt said:
weed, regret, masturbation, auto asphyxiation

thats my metal band name do not steal

That doesn't sound very metal. More of a punk rock band name.
 
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Luweewu said:
Simply not giving a shit.
Did exactly just that at CEO. The atmosphere was soooo awesome, I ignored the fact I haven't practice in a month and just wanted to have fun. Went to practice beating 4 different players before Pools started (KoF). Best experience even if I got eliminated early.
 
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What I do? Since I have pretty bad anxiety? I realize that I'm the baddest mofo on the planet. And then I just win. Or sometimes lose. But those loses don't count. Another method I use is to drink 2 4/7's of a can of Ginger Ale while singing "Turn Down for What".

Seriously though, I make actions muscle memory and fight my hardest to stay in the game. If anxiety ever gets to the crippling point, my play falls back onto the muscle memory and I hopefully have time to recuperate enough to finish the set. Which doesn't always happen, but it leaves me in a better place than I otherwise would be in. But you wouldn't believe how many matches I've played where I mentally shut down and was mentally packing up my mental stuff and going mental home, but my muscle memory said "LMAO FUCK THAT SHIT BRUH" and I won the match. I can actually find recorded sets of me and point you to the exact moments it happens.
 
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First off, yaboidekillsage AND Swiftfox both had some MAD nerves in the beginning of grand finals. (Sorry guys.) Everyone gets nerves sometimes.

My best advice is experience. Play in an environment that you think "matters" as often as you can, whether it's an online FT10 or a $1 money match or on a stream or whatever, until you are able to get over it and concentrate on the game. There really is no other easy solution.

I also always aim for not-last-place, so as long as I win one game I'm happy with my performance.
(Except when I have to lose because we're sponsoring the tournament, I'm unhappy with those. :^)
 
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It's a pity we can't do an arcade style lobby. Like, one guy plays and the first person puts up a quarter or steam card or whatever. winner keeps the prize, next person in the lobby gets a shot. It'd probably get nailed as gambling though.
 
alexpi said:
It's a pity we can't do an arcade style lobby. Like, one guy plays and the first person puts up a quarter or steam card or whatever. winner keeps the prize, next person in the lobby gets a shot. It'd probably get nailed as gambling though.
I initially misread that as "next person in the lobby gets shot" and was like, wtf kind of Mortal Kombat shit are you into?
 
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Playing like that all the time would definitely eliminate your nerves! Until you die.
 
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i agree with what mike said. playing in an environment that you think matters is a great way to overcome nerves.

when i first started to get into FGs serious with SF4 i used to get mad nevous even just playing online against randoms. now the casuals i go to has regular streams and i used to get nervous playing on those (even though like nobody watches them lol). its not something that will ever go away completely but having experience in those conditions will go a long way to making your nerves actually manageable.
 
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