砂漠のJeffire

Jeffirean Stories

Sunday, March 11, 2007

YO!

Wahaha, after a series of unhappy stuff, here I bring to you tons of happy news! Hope you guys will find hope in staying happy despite the term coming to the 2nd crunch period. Ganbatte!

Firstly, I'm proud to announce that I had just won the Winning Eleven X tournament (Xbox) held by the gaming club of SMU, Gamers Irregular. The tournament might not have taken place in the first case as Konami failed to obtain WCG (world cyber-games) official status unlike FIFA. Let me describe the matches I had played

Match 01:
I played against Prof Massi for the opening match of the tournament. He is the husband of my Italian professor last term! Haha, so coincidental. In the warm-up match he used Juventus and I used Barcelona, and we drew 1-1. Then in the real match I used a Serie A team, Inter Milan since he's Italian. The game ended 0-0 as I wasted several opportunities to put the ball into the back of the net while he couldn't play to his strength as Xbox doesn't have the R2 function. I also don't use that function either. In fact there are many special moves I don't know how to use also. Haha. Moreover both of us play the PS2 rather than Xbox.

Match 02:
I played against a guy who used Barcelona. During the warm-up I tried Lyon and it somehow seem plausible so I used Lyon in the real match too. He scored first but I equalised and took the lead in the last 5-6mins before the first half ended. In the 2nd half I conceded a penalty which I think was the computer's fault because I didn't press sliding tackle. But luckily I guessed correctly and saved the penalty. Haha. My defence of the lead was successful so I led the small group by this point. An hour later when the last game of the group was played. This guy beat Prof Massi 4-0 and hence I went through to the semi-finals on 4 points (1 draw 1 win).

Match 03:
In the semi-finals I played against a foreign guy whom I think is a Vietnamese. He won every qualifying group match using his Manchester Utd team. As I was running late to go IT Show with Pika, I agreed to NOT playing any warm up match, as the referee mentioned so before the game began. I used Valencia this time as I saw some guy using it and Valencia seemed pretty good and balanced. I made the team more defensive as I shifted the midfielders backwards. This time I took the lead first through a freaky goal. His Van Der Sar threw the ball out to the midfield which was picked up by my David Villa and I aimed a long shot straight at the empty goal. Hahaha =x. But it was not for long as he equalised soon after. Then he took the lead quickly after the 2nd half began. I had to chase the game while defending against his super offensive team (think C Ronaldo, Giggs, Rooney and Saha, and you know) My heart pounded more madly than the previous games as my attacking was far and few in between (though I had more shots on target). To my relief, at the death of time, during loss time, he somehow lost his concentration and I managed to take a goal back. Soon followed the extra time. With no goals scored, penalty shootout was looming. I saved his first spot kick but missed the 4th, so it went to the wire till the 6th player! I scored but he missed, phew.. but he protested now as he said he thought it was a warmup match and he wondered why I screamed after I scored the dying minutes equaliser. So the referee had to step in and explain to him but to no avail. Finally the referee suggested replaying the match with a 1 goal advantage to me but I wanted to say 1/2 goal since I only won by the PK shootout. But he seemed to have not listened so I did not really bother. The next match I used Liverpool instead and he lost his offensive prowess pretty much since Liverpool is great defensively! I again changed the tactics to a defensive one, and changed some players who usually are on the bench to start, eg Luis Garcia (who is my most favourite Liverpool player). I changed the tactics to an offensive one in the last 10mins, which Benitez used before --> 3 strikers! Eventually the game ended 0-0 though, haha. So I went through~

Match 04:
This guy had played with me before the tournament began as we were both early at the booth. He used Holland then while I used Barcelona, but we had the game ended 1-1. Of course there is no more warm up now because I was already 2.5hrs later than predicted. He used Brazil as he always did, and to suit him, I used a national team. I used Czech Republic! Haha. (the reason is because of Petr Cech actually =p) I switched the usual tactic to a 3-5-2 while he used 4-3-3. Now tell me who in the world would do so against Ronaldo, Ronaldinho and Robinho (and the likes)? But this is where the beauty lies, as I had read a comic book which they switched a 4-5-1 to 3-5-2 with devastating effect. (comic books are of course not good material as reference, right? But I learnt the lesson behind that tactic change. =p Then during the game, I was defending madly because he is very very good at controlling the player (heard he plays FIFA on the Xbox) and soon fell to a goal after he got a freekick, in which Ronaldo was injured. (phew or not phew, i don't know) I swapped the tactic again after losing the goal by pulling Koller nearer to the midfielders. And the tactic worked! I equalised soon with a Nedved shot that Dida spilled into the goal. Soon after he took the lead again in the 2nd half but I equalised around the 70+min period with another Nedved effort. Haha. Then I turned the game around as a series of nice passes led to a great goal by my player and that was around the 82-83min mark. Defend defend defend, and yes, I won the tournament!

Generally, I felt that apart from the first match, the rest of the matches I played with a disadvantage as I used teams of a lower standard. Mighty Barcelona? Speedy Lyon. Mighty Man Utd? Lucky Valencia and resolute Liverpool. Mighty Brazil? Intelligent Czech Republic. Heh. =p

Actually I got to thank my brother for our countless challenges in the past few years. I probably lost 60% of all the matches played with him, I guess. But in the process I learned to be tactically astute and defensively aware because my brother is a attacking minded player and he usually buys up the best players around while I will settle for cheaper players. So now I have some #1 achievement in SMU which I can keep in my memory happily.

Wow, just the tournament itself took such a big space. The post tournament celebration included shopping at Marina Square (very hungrily) and finally we got a nice sofa seat at Ministry of Food. All of us, Eileen, Pika, Princess Pooh had ramen. I also ordered my favourite avocado salad and we had dessert as well. Wondering to post a funny photo here.... haha. But Princess Pooh says she will sue me, and I am afraid she will summon the 9 Dous to whack mee.. =p so let's keep it for private viewing.

Okie, the next item on is MIC' It! held on Thu evening. I had Pika and Eileen watching me sing. Personally I felt I did a bad job, but I guess I really lack experience in performing, plus even as Charles warned before to sing to my strengths, I did not pick a 'strong' song that can display my interesting vocals. Haha. Overall i felt good though because I had fun singing, learning and listening to all the great singers around.

Other stuff that made me feel great:

a. Being a part-time cruiser at SIM. SIM got lotsa eye candy! Best thing is the food and milo is cheap and nice! Haha. Okie, I don't cruise in SIM, to be truthful. I just like the food there.

b. Winning Texas Hold'em against Jinki and Kevin =p Haha, my luck was no good when we were on the mahjong table (but I only played a losing tile once leh, the rest is zi mo or others play one, so my skill is not so bad actually). But my luck spun for the better as Jinki taught us a new game. Heh, next CNY can play again, though my favourite game is still mahjong~

c. Eating lou hei at Sushi Tei. Wahaha, the lou hei tastes different from usual and it's really really nice!

d. Getting A for a project. I have not gotten an A for ages! Haha. Don't forget I'm SMU's lousiest student of all time.

I can't recall more but there's definitely more to this than meets the eye, but heck, as long as I feel happy, I'm happy! Anyway it's 2.36am in the morning now so I shall go to bed. Haha.

KTV challenge up at the end of the month wor! Please indicate if you are interested and which week is good. Usually I prefer going for K Lunch on weekdays and Partyworld on weekends. =)

Yay!!
Jeffire

Acknowledged my existence at
1:22 AM