Snakeee
Smash Master
No johns, he played pretty well and not like I expected at all
...well we always say no johns, but still feel the need to explain one or more things that bothered us/cost us the match
. Here it was:
a) anxiety that came up when he started off with a lead, stupidly thinking too much about "omg this guy might be able to beat me, and theres like no set ups here and nothing going on after singles really. I'm gonna end up just hitting the icy road by myself for that 45 min drive with nothing but disappointment in myself and frustration. (Generalized) Anxiety is my toughest rival whom I've been battling for many years. On the bright side, I'm finally starting to win even though I let it get to me here.
b) I "leveled myself" and also I forgot how I approach the MU. From experience, fighting Fox is really, really weird with ZSS. It's reallyyy hit or miss, and if I play it wrong at all, I've pretty much lost the match. Also, the MU is very player dependent. I played him too much like the way I had played you, and that costed me dearly. One kinda major thing is that he wasn't approaching in a way that would protect him much at all against my D-smash. I stupidly thought too much into this, and kept thinking he would adapt and realize what the risk/reward was there XD. This isn't at all saying something negative about his game, because he didn't need to adapt when I really wasn't going for the move enough >_< .
Both of these two things are the by far biggest reasons I can be SOOO inconsistent in placings. The first means I get really worried about every little thing if I don't reason myself out of it and realize how ridiculous my worries are. There's actually a good part about being so used to dealing with anxiety though. Even in seemingly tough, real-life situations that would make just about anyone anxious, I can often manage to clear my mind through reason and be able to think things through rationally.
With (b).....
Snakeee's super-amazing intro to leveling! 
*4 Credits* :D
Leveling yourself is a term I borrowed from poker which basically means you mind****ed yourself. It's something that always exists in some way in anything competitive. It's the player vs. player psychology of the game or usually what we call "mind games" here. I can probably write a whole book on leveling if I felt like it, but I'm just giving you the gist of it here. Basically, there are deeper and deeper (or higher) levels of thinking with regards to your opponent. It comes down to logic that looks like "I know, he knows..." *4 Credits* :D
For instance, in general terms, something along the lines of,
"I know that up air is the best option here. I know that he knows that up air is the best option. I know that he knows that I know that up air is the best option."
Then you can use that logic and what you know about your opponent to form a conclusion on the opponent's most likely move -" I know that when he expects an up air he almost always immediately air dodge."
- "I will wait out and bait the air dodge, and punish him as it ends"
Now, you need to be careful with this. "Leveling yourself" happens when you think things one or more steps ahead of what your opponent is actually thinking. In the example I used, say I was wrong about my opponent knowing that up air was my best option. If that's the case, then my opponent probably won't expect me to attack, and may not air dodge at all. The result could then be that I stand there baiting the air dodge, yet to my surprise my opponent decides to suddenly fast fall and attack me instead. Now, I got punished for thinking something too much further than I felt my opponent was thinking about it. When this happens, it takes a toll on your own psyche unless you have a good handle on how you think about it. I usually just felt like a complete idiot after that sort of thing, and sometimes it REALLY got to me. You have to try and reason with yourself that it's just one mistake, and not dwell on it.
The other way you can **** things up with this (and I DEFINITELY have before) is by thinking that your opponent is bad at the game for thinking on such a simple level. That's not true at ALL, and you can't truly understand what leveling is until you really realize this part. How deep the opponent's level of thinking (especially in one given spot) doesn't mean much about their game, overall. Psychology is in fact an important part of any competitive game, but thinking more deeply can ruin you just as much as it can improve your game. There can be a number of reasons for your opponent simply not being on the same wavelength as you, and one of them is in fact that he might not see you for the deep thinker that you feel you are
. We poker players usually refer to this as "reverse-leveling" yourself: over thinking things because you're not being given the credit to even be thinking about them in the first place. Key point: you always want to be exactly one, and only one step ahead of your opponent's level of thinking. One step behind, or two steps ahead often means failure. Sometimes, people even get lucky because they were thinking two extra steps in either direction and win because they contradicted themselves with their incorrect logic
Of course, that could potentially screw you up most of all in the long run when that opponent reveals himself to be thinking COMPLETELY differently than what you were so sure of because it had been working.Wow, why do I keep going on about random ****? >_<
Hope SOMETHING in there is helpful to someone at least lol
