9 Year Old Brawler.

[Killress]

My little brother, Jacob (9), has played smash semi-competitively for about two years (know's most AT's, but doesn't go to tournaments). He has very good mindgames, but when he tries to read my moves/mindgames, he says it is too difficult, and thus, gives up on reading. Does anyone have any pointers/tips/suggestions as how to fix this?

Thanks a million

-Killress

 

[The Real Inferno]

Um...he's nine. He has an underdeveloped brain with the attention span of a goldfish. It's a little much to expect him to focus so hard on one thing. If you really want, you'd need to make some kind of reward system out of it that gives him incentive to bother to do so.

 

[Killress]

Um...he's nine. He has an underdeveloped brain with the attention span of a goldfish. It's a little much to expect him to focus so hard on one thing. If you really want, you'd need to make some kind of reward system out of it that gives him incentive to bother to do so.

Good idea. I'll give it a try.

P.S. He is very good for his age.

 

[ndayday]

Whatever you do, don't try to force him into doing it. I wish my 8 year old brother was good!!

A little of topic but is he actually...good?

Anyway, just give it some time and he'll eventually get it if he's as good as you say.

 

[Foxtrotter]

My little brother, Jacob (9), has played smash semi-competitively for about two years (know's most AT's, but doesn't go to tournaments). He has very good mindgames, but when he tries to read my moves/mindgames, he says it is too difficult, and thus, gives up on reading. Does anyone have any pointers/tips/suggestions as how to fix this?

Thanks a million

-Killress

I have an eight year old little sister who is trying to become good at Smash, (she mains Ike, hah!) so I figure these methods will work sorta well...

1) DON'T boss him around. It peeves the little ones so much.
2) DO say "Good job!" or "Wow, I didn't expect that!" when he reads a mindgame well.
3) DO practice, practice, practice. Shove you and him in Training Mode, and use the same mindgame over and over until he reads it.

My two cents, more to come sometime or another...

 

[Killress]

A little of topic but is he actually...good?

.

I have an eight year old little sister who is trying to become good at Smash, (she mains Ike, hah!) so I figure these methods will work sorta well...

1) DON'T boss him around. It peeves the little ones so much.
2) DO say "Good job!" or "Wow, I didn't expect that!" when he reads a mindgame well.
3) DO practice, practice, practice. Shove you and him in Training Mode, and use the same mindgame over and over until he reads it.

My two cents, more to come sometime or another...

NakedDeDeDe, he's pretty good. He's the only competition I've had for the 2 years I've played Smash, so his tech. skill is above aerage for his age, but, his only REAL trouble is reading my moves

FoxTrotter, I like your idea about the training mode.


Thanks for the input, guys, more ideas would be appreciated

 

[Onomanic]

I have an 11 year old brother who can kick my *** pretty good too. And here's my two cents.

Make the reading easier for him. Make like a paper of the stuff you want to teach him but just watered down. Helps for any bad reader.

 

[Marty]

2) DO say "Good job!" or "Wow, I didn't expect that!" when he reads a mindgame well.

haha, I immediately thought of SFIII when I read this. "That's not what I expected!", "Yeah, I've been waitin' for this!"

But seriously, it's a waste of time to cultivate something like that if the drive is not already present. If you have to push to get him to keep playing, he'll stop when the pressure does.

 

[Killress]

I have an 11 year old brother who can kick my *** pretty good too. And here's my two cents.

Make the reading easier for him. Make like a paper of the stuff you want to teach him but just watered down. Helps for any bad reader.

What would the paper do?

 

[Marty]

He's trying to say: "Explain it in simple terms".

 

[Killress]

He's trying to say: "Explain it in simple terms".

Ahh. Alright.


He understands what I'm telling him, it's just the grasping the ability to read is giving him trouble. (Unless I play as my mains.)

 

[OmegaXXII]

sh...t I wish my 11 yr. old bro was as good as you say your bro is

anyway my tips:

don't make to hard for him to understand, as someone mentioned, explain it in simple terms,

practice, practice, practice, this always works and it makes perfect if he keeps it up

also what's with his reading problem?

 

[Killress]

sh...t I wish my 11 yr. old bro was as good as you say your bro is

anyway my tips:

don't make to hard for him to understand, as someone mentioned, explain it in simple terms,

practice, practice, practice, this always works and it makes perfect if he keeps it up

also what's with his reading problem?

Oh. By reading I meant reading my moves, not literary reading. Haha. That explains a lot of these posts. My bad. Now I feel like an idiot.

 

[samdaballer]

tournaments, have him get his *** whipped a couple of tiimes and he might learn. But then again, he's only 9, most nine year olds have minimal in depth reasoning and predicting skills for mindgames.

 

[Killress]

tournaments, have him get his *** whipped a couple of tiimes and he might learn. But then again, he's only 9, most nine year olds have minimal in depth reasoning and predicting skills for mindgames.

The closest tourny is an hour away usually, and my mom won't drive us. I can beg but... I dunno.

 

[Killress]

Any other ideas, guys?

 

[WolfCypher]

I actually know 17+ year olds who have trouble reading other people. It may not be an age thing. Perhaps your playstyle is very unpredictable. Perhaps your sibling just isn't into reading the opponent move for move. Or it could be the age-gap, I dunno.

 

[Killress]

I actually know 17+ year olds who have trouble reading other people. It may not be an age thing. Perhaps your playstyle is very unpredictable. Perhaps your sibling just isn't into reading the opponent move for move. Or it could be the age-gap, I dunno.

Interesting point.


Is it all that critical to read your opponent? Or can you just react to them?

 

[CalebSitton]

Hey my bro is almost 8 and he can somewhat beat me so i know what you mean...

Let him do whatever he wants but try to do the same thing over and over like the mindreading you mentioned...

Or you can do like I did and let him practice on his own like with a CPU for a couple months "frequently change the CPU lv. and character or he'll get bored and give up." and by then i bet that he could read your moves and learn how to dodge them to boot.

you are welcome!

 

[WolfCypher]

Interesting point.


Is it all that critical to read your opponent? Or can you just react to them?

Umm...I dunno,

I do, it works for me. I really can't think of how reading your opponent wouldn't benefit you. It could only help.

 

[MarKO X]

He's 9. You almost don't have to do mindgames to fool him.

If he's good at the game, and his only problem is reading mind games, then just continue to play the game with him. He'll figure it out soon. By the time he's 12, 11, or maybe even 10, he'll have the right stuff.

Putting him in a tourney or two will definitely help though... expose him to different playstyles.

 

[hugQ Cortex]

2) DO say "Good job!" or "Wow, I didn't expect that!" when he reads a mindgame well.

LOL! That is so corny. I play with my 13 year old sister a lot and I would NEVER say that to her. She's annoying enough as it is

 

[Morrigan]

I do not agree on sending him to a tourney. Just think how he would feel if he gets his *** served. What if he gets sad and drops the game?

 

[WolfCypher]

I don't agree with the suggestions on doing the same thing over and over. It's like losing on purpose. It's not helping in the long run.

I guess the closest thing to that that could work would be to pick a character, explain how you play with that character (ie: you're entire playstyle and what he should pay attention to so when he sees you doing something, he knows what you're setting up) and see if he can pick up on your playstyle in battle. Don't be too predictable, but stay the course you stated and see if he can remember all that you revealed, just that now it's being used in an actual fight. Of course, that would force you to reveal your character's playstyle completely.

 

[Tristan_win]

You want advise on how to get him better, stop playing him and introduce him to other smashers.

The reason he's most likely having trouble reading you is because you two have played so much that you know each other moves better then your own. The reason why he thinks it's his lack of ability to read you is because you are reading him better then he can read you.

After he develops a bit or get use to fighting other people beside you your matches will become more interesting.

 

[MarKO X]

I do not agree on sending him to a tourney. Just think how he would feel if he gets his *** served. What if he gets sad and drops the game?

Yeah, that's a good point, I forgot about that. My lil bro is 10, he's garbage at the game (at least now), and he still thinks he's the best video game player alive... so my brother can get beat and still persist. But he's not average in any sense anyway.

 

[Talazala]

If he's only 9 and he's this good, don't worry. Just invite some of your friend over and get them to face him. Make sure none of them are insanely good though, since that might discourage him to play further. Choose friends who are aproximately his skill level and let him slowly get better through simply just playing and understanding the flow of the mind and brawl. If he ever surpasses any of your friends, just pit him against a even more skilled friend. By the time he's 12 or 13, he will kick---

It's kinda like learning a language. You don't learn a language well if you just memorize words and sentence structure. To learn a language, you must immerse yourself in that language without explaination. Thats why children naturally learn the language of their country.

Oh and make sure to make a agreement with him so that if he ever becomes the next Ken that you get 1/4 of his tourney profit.

 

[Icarus Descent]

I have an eight year old little sister who is trying to become good at Smash, (she mains Ike, hah!) so I figure these methods will work sorta well...

1) DON'T boss him around. It peeves the little ones so much.
2) DO say "Good job!" or "Wow, I didn't expect that!" when he reads a mindgame well.
3) DO practice, practice, practice. Shove you and him in Training Mode, and use the same mindgame over and over until he reads it.

My two cents, more to come sometime or another...

It sounds as if you are training a dog..

 

[¯\_S.(ツ).L.I.D._/¯]

I do not agree on sending him to a tourney. Just think how he would feel if he gets his *** served. What if he gets sad and drops the game?

Ya great point Dekuu, because he's nine, I bet he would get really sad if he got pwned in a tourney. What I did to help myself learn to read opponents was to record every match I could and then analyze them, and then I'll say what the opponent is about to do, not from memory, because I know what I was thinking, and then I can use that to figure out what the opponent was thinking. And how old are you?

 

[Snowstalker]

Sounds pretty cool. My sister sucks (mains Pikachu and Wario), and my dad is even worse (mains Diddy, Pit, and Toon Link)

I'm not greatt either, so your bro could very well beat me.

 

[Yuna]

Good idea. I'll give it a try.

P.S. He's 'gifted' at video games, he is very good for his age.

In the wise words of Kathy Griffin:
"I hate kids and how come everyone's kids are now gifted? I wasn't gifted. I'm not gifted yet."

Just because he's slightly better than his peers doesn't mean he's gifted or talented. Just... slightly better than his peers.

Anyway, he doesn't really "have good mindgames" if he can't "read your mindgames". Mindgames entails, among other things, reading your opponent. Just teach him to have more patience and dedication. Sit him down and try to explain to him the basics of countering "basic mindgames" and let him take it from there and see if he can develop counter-strategies on his own.

 

[wPSonX]

In the wise words of Kathy Griffin:
"I hate kids and how come everyone's kids are now gifted? I wasn't gifted. I'm not gifted yet."

Just because he's slightly better than his peers doesn't mean he's gifted or talented. Just... slightly better than his peers.

Anyway, he doesn't really "have good mindgames" if he can't "read your mindgames". Mindgames entails, among other things, reading your opponent. Just teach him to have more patience and dedication. Sit him down and try to explain to him the basics of countering "basic mindgames" and let him take it from there and see if he can develop counter-strategies on his own.

Y yu hate kids? its a good thing every kid now in days are gifted. what yu want them to be dumb and wont have fun. When i was 11 yrs old i was a great FPS player on the pc and did anyone complain no. Its a gud thing kids are gifted and they can compete wit older ppl.

 

[exyk]

just play 20h per day

 

[Morrigan]

. When i was 11 yrs old i was a great FPS player on the pc.

Ugh, and you play Halo 3 now, I assume?

 

[Marty]

He started his post with "Y yu hate kids?". The standard procedure is to ignore those types of posts. Because it's pretty apparent he's not reading anyone else's.

 

[Killress]

Well, we can't really attend tourneys, and none of my friends are good at smash (they play itemss on....)


I'm 14, btw.

 

[LP4Life666]

My little brother, Jacob (9), has played smash semi-competitively for about two years (know's most AT's, but doesn't go to tournaments). He has very good mindgames, but when he tries to read my moves/mindgames, he says it is too difficult, and thus, gives up on reading. Does anyone have any pointers/tips/suggestions as how to fix this?

Thanks a million

-Killress

How do you fix this, you ask? Why, I think that should be quite obvious.

First, sell your Wii. Then, buy an Xbox-360 and give your little brother Gears of War. It's way more family friendly and will have your bro owning face on X-box live in no time!

Actually they've got enough 9-year olds on X-box live already. Forget I said anything.

 

[Yuna]

Stuff.

I truly hope, for your sake, that this was sarcasm/a joke/a bump-on-the-head-induced post.

 

[Chuee]

Well usually if you play against someone a lot you can figure them out and predict their moves a lot. Im only 12 and im pretty good at brawl.

 

[PCHU]

Show him examples of what most good players do to try and fake you out.
Show him how to counter various mindgames (There are plenty, but most of them have a similar concept) and how to 'predict' what is about to be done.

If you practice with him, and show him individual mindgames, then test him with all of them mixed together, I think he can learn to counter very easily.

I have no competition.
The best competition I have is a fellow Fox player, but he's nowhere near my level (semi pro I would say, given techniques I apply and how I apply them compared to pro videos and such).
I work with a lv.9 Fox, and apply the most thinking I can to anything I find.

Oh, wait.
You mean BRAWL.

Well, since it's a lot slower than Melee, it's easier to see where you're going.
But I still fake people out with Ike and land a killer fsmash, usmash, or fair.
It all depends on how he plays.

I guess just show him different characters, their moves, and how to counter them.
Simple, but it will take time to get used to noticing when someone's smash has started, how long it can charge, and when the smash will end.
Fox's usmash and Ike's fsmash are relatively hard to dodge (Well, not really Ike's, but he does have awkward timing on it), but over time I have found that I can see Fox's smashes coming 1/4th of a mile away. (Means it's still hard, even though I have sharpened skills)

Remind him:
He's not always going to win.
I learned that from some pro Snake player on with Anyone, and my friend who plays Kirby and DK.
Also remind him that characters have favored moves, so teach him what moves are used most, and get him used to dodging and countering.

After some time, he should have a firm grasp of the concept, and be one of the best kids out there.