Making reads in tournament setting

[onehunna]

Hey Falcons. I went to my first local tournament recently and I had a lot of fun, played a ton of Melee, and placed pretty decently. When reflecting on what I could have done better in my matches, one thing stuck out: my reads. In friendlies with training partners and friends, I make my reads much more consistently as well as regrabs and, as a result, I get my stuff going more often. Of course, Falcon mains know well how strong the Captain is when you're on point with the reads and tech follow-ups. However I found that in a tournament setting, I needed some time to adjust to what my (foreign) opponent was doing in terms of tech rolls, as well as reactions to my baited approaches. The sets were each best of three, so you can imagine how each stock is crucial--I felt like I wasn't catching on quick enough, and because of this, not only were my reads not as strong, but my punishes weren't as dialed in to boot. I wasn't 'flowing' as well as when I played against people whose personal styles I wasn't as comfortable with, whose habits I didn't know. In retrospect this really seems like an obvious run-in with tournaments, but for some reason it blindsided me.

Any anecdotes or tips on getting those regrabs, making those reads against people in tournament who you aren't familiar with?

 

[Twinkles]

First step is knowing you won't get the reads you can get in friendlies for obvious reasons. You won't have the time to fully adapt in tournament.

Be more liberal about regrabs in tournament. In general, people aren't very good at getting out of it, and you can pick apart habits like that. Cover options as much as possible, like with sh knee -> tech-chase regrab if you catch them near the ledge, or dsmash to cover multiple options. That said, don't be afraid to go for reads if you're confident, especially if you're up. One or two good reads usually lead to massive, massive damage, so a good read can very well widen gaps in stock leads.

You can make reading a little easier if you can break your opponent into an archetype. Aggressive spacies and players in general like teching in-place to move ASAP. Some people always roll into the stage to avoid getting edgeguarded. Some roll away to the edge to be tricky. It's all very mind-gamey and based on predicting another person's behavior though, so unless you're confident in yourself, don't go all willy-nilly for hard reads.

Hope this helps.

 

[thespymachine]

Mindfulness is key. You can get all the tech-chase reaction grabs in the world, but if you aren't being mindful of what you're doing as/during your opponents time-frame to tech or what your opponents reactions are in those moments, you won't be able to convert hard punishes with read and will end up relying on guesses, which can and will put you in bad positions.

Try to remind yourself to take note of what your opponent did when you did something in particular - just like when we all start trying to DI and L-cancel, we have to consciously remind ourselves to do it before it becomes habit. It'll start small, like when you knee on their shield when they're near the edge (the answer is, with lower play, typically a roll in which you can catch with a dair, grab, bair, etc), and becomes huge the more you practice, since it'll become habit and your mind will be trained to be mindful and take note of more and more things.

Out of game you can do meditation.
I believe anything that requires any sort of mental exertion (melee, chess, studying, etc) can be improved by forming a habit to meditate.
It's basically training your mind to judo unnecessary information, and allows you to focus so much better when you need to.
Here's a link to some mindful meditation, which is like the ultimate foundation for good meditation practice: http://marc.ucla.edu/body.cfm?id=22&oTopID=22