Another weekend, and another grueling Tekken 5 tournament. That's right, I just returned from the second weekend of the Tekken 5 regional tournament series. This time my quest to reach Orlando took me to the Windy City, Chicago. After a late flight in, I completely missed out on playing any games Friday. While some may not think taking 24 hours off would harm anything, it was very apparent that Saturday would be a long day for me.

I started things off with a few warm-up rounds pre-tournament on Saturday. I racked up a few short streaks, messing around with Nina, Baek, Ganryu, Ling, and Feng. As I played, and waited in line after a loss, some familiar faces began to show up. Marquee on the list was a crew from Northern California and Colorado. California has always been known as a top contender in the Tekken community, and one of their best, 725, was on hand and heavily favored to take a nationals spot. Also hailing from NorCal were Naoki, a high level Julia player, and Matt Deezie who plays a high level Lee.

Colorado has not been as widely known as NorCal in terms of harboring high level Tekken players, but they have had their fare share of high class Tekken players. In attendance were Wu, generally a Ling player, but using Feng in Tekken 5; Smilez, largely considered the best player in CO, and bringing Hwoarang to the table; BigD, known for his explosive team spirit and hammerhead Marduk skills; and Isaac, a capable Steve and Lee player.

This was the first time CO had publicly ventured out of state, and it was unknown what kind of skill level they would bring to Chicago. However, the tension around the CO players definitely had an air of confidence. Unfortunately, the end result was not what they likely expected.

Rounding out the list of notable out of state players were tragic (Texas), FoxStepCEO and Panther (Michigan), STLbadboy and Mirai (St. Louis), YouHeDad (Minnesota), KingFan and Sushi (Iowa), and Antonio (Wisconsin). The stage was set, and the competition was looking good. Jason Arney rattled off the rules, and the tournament began.

Colorado took two early loses, with Wu and BigD heading to the loser's bracket first round. Meanwhile, all three Cali players, and all other favored players remained in the winner's bracket. I started off slow, having two matches against Steve players. It was quickly apparent that taking a day off right before regionals was not a good idea, as both matches went the full distance. Luckily I prevailed with a sub-par performance, but I knew my luck would only last so long, and I would need to get focused and back into the groove I was feeling in STL.