Happy!

I'm arriving by coach at the Eurolines Coach Station, Ave du General de Gaulle, Bagnolet which I believe is just outside Paris. I want to get to from there to the WWI.


Any idea how I can do this? Help asap would be appreciated because I'm leaving in an hour or two.

Furthermore, through intense incompetetence I've fucked myself over with the hotels. I booked one online on an English website because my French is pretty weak. However their idea of Paris and mine differ slightly. Long story short I'm in Evry, 20 miles from the WWI and considerably outside the Metro system. I will get buses if I have to (and I suspect I will have to) but again with the weak French thing. So it's not ideal. If any French people can tell me which buses I need to get from where I'd be extremely grateful. I'll probably get a taxi from wherever I get off the bus and hand them the hotels address. I can afford a few short taxi trips without cutting into my alcohol budget but I'd be sober all weekend if I got a taxi from the WWI.
Either that or if any insomniac with a hotel wants to get very drunk all Saturday night and play poker/talk bw/slur incoherently for the duration of the night then I'll happily do that with you and just skip the hotel bit (I'm looking at you Haji).
Here's the journey to my hotel (roughly).


If any WWI guy wants my mobile number then pm me and I'll give you it.

What are you!?!?!

Catching up on vods and I stumbled across Arena MSL Group C game 5, Kal vs Hero. KaL ends up a loooong way behind and Hero is moving in with his much bigger army to try and take the kill. Seeing that the reavers that will spearhead the attack are about to arrive he takes the initiative and attacks first. The only problem being that he is hugely outnumbered, attacking an army which was poised to finish him off. The look on Hero's face after that battle will stay with me for years. Total bewilderment. He knew that he'd had the game won and he'd been about to execute his opponent. In Hero's world something was suddenly very wrong.

After he ggs out he just sits there in the booth, head in his hands with that same expression. He just doesn't quite understand where his army went. KaL however is just on a high. He knows he's just done a ridiculous comeback and it shows in his face. A mixture of relief, joy and exhiliration as he laughs.


The game
+ Show Spoiler +

About 2 years ago my gf of 19 months dumped me and I was really fucked up over it for a longish time and since then I've been pretty much avoiding girls (obsessing over girls I can't have and avoiding situations where I meet girls). Only had one gf since her and that was a very short adventure.
So, we've been not talking.

Last week she emailed me with an apology for the way things turned out (she dumped me for some jackass who then dumped her) and then when I was destroyed over it cut me off. It was a friendly
"I'm fine, was thinking about you and wanted to apologise for the way things turned out, how are things with you, I'd like to talk to you again"
thing. I replied with a
"You were young, we all make mistakes, don't beat yourself up over it, I think it'd be better if we never spoke again though".

Since then I've been checking email pretty much constantly, usually without thinking about it, and have been really moody. I think I can draw some kind of link between the events and that. So yeah, I'm all emo right now.
Got back tonight and she'd just emailed me again and she really wants to talk. And I know I do. And I know I can't. And it's bollocks. Ever the smooth talker I replied with a "no". And now I'm more emo than ever. There is no way I can allow her in my life but keeping her out is fucking me up.

I@VE MET HAJI!! LOLSUP!?!?
+ Show Spoiler +

Ok. First things first. #93 on the TSL ladder. Suck it bitches. Those of you who thought I'd lost my touch (I mean you LoD-Mika) can just put that shit in your pipe and smoke it. Admittedly top 100 isn't an achievement really, given only 48 qualify, but it's the best achievement I've got so I'm gonna brag about it. A rep pack will happen (Paddy has been pestering me), I just want to sort out the random non-TSL crap first.

Now I'm not TSLing I've finally started sorting and watching the vods I've acquired over the years. So here's a random tip. If you ever see an unknown zerg named ggaemo on liquibet just vote for him. That man has sick ZvT control. His game sense and macro could be better, that's why he's a total unknown, but his unit control is near perfect. Up and coming pro there, I called it.

Also look on youtube and find GoRush vs Anytime on Blue Storm. I think it's there, although split into 3 parts. Absolutely sick game.
Edit: I got google video working. The full game is here.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5781826085939799288&hl=en

So I've not really been ICCuping much later. A mixture of friends (bad for BW skill) and poker (destroyer of BW skill) have been taking over. But after another UK player (rANDY) mentioned how well a third UK player (reno) was doing I realised I needed to get back in the game and reassert my dominance. I can't have these lesser Protoss players intruding into my stomping ground. So I log onto ICCup and beat TSL-Finger. Finger was pretty bm imo, I paused to answer the door about 45 seconds in and he went crazy, spamming "hurry, I have no time". So I scouted for proxies (if he has no time then he'll rush) and scouted 9/9 gate in the middle. When I defended it he said "gg re?" and I was like "lol, I thought you had no time" so he started insulting me and went pure cannon, forcing me to play a long game which I won with carriers. Pretty lame imo.
Shortly afterwards I am greated by a message most would kill to recieve.
From Liquid_nazgul: Hey, want a re?

There is a little history here. I beat him Protoss against random Terran on the wonderful PvT map that is Loki. Admittedly I had a number of advantages, such as I was on a desktop whereas he was on a laptop, I'd been chilling all day whereas he'd been travelling and was now on the good side of a few beers and the rather strange fact that we were both sitting 3 feet from each other in my conservatory. But anyway, I was in the good place that is 100% record vs Naz and he wanted to take that from me. A fight ensued.

Game 1, Gaia. I'm a little rusty but out to pimp the hell out of him. So naturally I wall in the wrong base site and go fast darks while he 2 gate zee rushes the wrong base. By the time he's at my base I have 2 zee walling and a dark building, about 5 minutes in. It's insanely fast. Unfortunately Naz can micro. He breaks his way in and kills a few probes. I'm forced to use the dark to defend as he kills several more probes. Eventually I restore order and send the dark, but I know it's futile. I ask him if he has won and he says he has. I gg out.
1-1
Game 2, Gaia. I open 2 gate goons and he opens 2 gate zealots. We're having some lag spikes and I'm not used to icc latency and I only have one arm and I was on fire and a dozen other excuses. Anyway, long story short, my goon micro was less than impressive and kind of involved my goons not firing or standing just out of range of the zealots killing my probes. My probe count was too damaged and I couldn't recover.
2-1 to Naz.
Game 3, Gaia. I open 1 gate fast core with a zealot and he opens 1 gate fast core without. I head straight for citadel without even slowing (cutting probes so hard) and he sees it. I then attack him with 1 zealot and a dragoon (with another zealot coming) vs his 1 dragoon on ramp (he's going fast robo) while getting archives. I successfully kill 2 dragoons and 3 probes with my 2 zealot and a dragoon, and hurt a third dragoon. At the same time I place two more gateways at my nat where his scout probe can't see them.
The first dark climbs the ramp as his ob comes out and he chases it around as it snipes 3 probes. As he defends his min line a second dark hides in his main. He returns to the ramp and I feign with two more darks while the hidden one takes out his min line. After losing 6 or so probes he notices and pulls the goons, at which point 5 darks run in and his goons cannot cope. Although he realised I was going for the kill with darks and laid 3 gateways they didn't really kick in in time, his unit numbers couldn't deal with the 3 gate darks.
2-2
Game 4, Katrina.
I open 2 gate goon and he opens FE into 2 gate zealots. He scouts my build and goes fast forge with cannons on the ramp, whereas I counter expand and go citadel and robo. I attempt to harass his cannons and realise his zealots have crept around and are now in my main. Most my probes survive unscathed but I barely mine for about a minute, building no units, but an archives and a shuttle. After cleaning up the zealots I go on the offensive, lifting my 4 goons up the cliff into his nat to attack the building cannons. About 15 seconds later 2 darks get dropped in and with a continual flow of darks he lost his gates and expansion and gged out. Amusingly enough his resource score was roughly twice mine.
3-2 KwarK
Game 5, Katrina. I opened 2 gate zealots into fast core and found him to be cross positions. He did 13 nex into 2 gate and our zealot counts at his base were pretty much equal. I got a micro advantage of a few hits but when we both made shield batteries (mine proxied) things were evened out. He backed into the artificial choke made by good gate placement and I started harassing him with goons. He then broke out with about 9 zealots vs my 5 zealots and 3 dragoons and I made the mistake of engaging his zealots which went horribly wrong. After that I tried a speedlot timing attack and found his army to be roughly 3x the size of mine. I gged out.
3-3
Game 6, Gaia. I opened 2 gate goons into dark and he opened 1 gate into speedlots. I expanded and he eventually got obs out. He attacked and was deflected by cannons, goons and an archon. It was here one of those fantastic moments in Starcraft took place. We both knew that if it stayed on 2 base vs 1 it was over and therefore he must kill my base or expand himself. However we both knew there was no way he could take on my base, my army alone was stronger than his and I had 4 or so cannons there too. Therefore thinking on a second level I moved out to hit any expansion attempt, thus winning the game. Which would have been great except that Naz was thinking on the third level and knew I was thinking on the second level. He knew I knew he knew he had to expand to win because he could never take my expansion. Which is why rather than expanding he sent his entire army out and hid by my nat. As I moved out to hit his expansion his entire army ran into my nat and destroyed it, as well as inflicting a lot of damage to my main. I made it to his base and found absolutely no attempt to expand. It was such a classic bit of Starcraft where he came back from a ridiculously bad situation by outthinking me. What he did was stupid in that there was no way he could have killed my nat. However it worked because he knew I knew that he knew there was no way he could kill my nat so I didn't believe he would attempt it. Was a beautiful bit of play and I'm not at all bitter to have lost a pretty much unlosable situation to it. It also highlights one of the biggest similarities between poker and starcraft.
4-3 Naz
We played our final game on Gaia (limited by the ICC abuse rules). I opened 10 10 gate and he went zealot core zealot. As I struggled to force him ramp I made a forge and hid a pylon in his main. Then I cannoned as I broke in. Adding zealots and cannons I managed to secure the top of his base and wipe out his gates. Then I just cannon advanced down to his nexus and he gged out.
4-4

I then played a few games on Troy vs a TSL-Slayer guy who was well mannered but a little too obsessed with mutalisks. Given the strength of mass sairs they were fairly easy wins but I love playing on Troy and I got to mess around with some fun build timings.

Finally I played Zpux on Gaia, PvT. I have a lot of respect for Zpux and it is because I know he's very skilled that I wish to brag about how one sided the game was. At one point during the game some vultures ventured onto my side of the map and tried to kill some probes at a safely cannoned expansion. That was it though, my reaver drop slowed him hugely, my army then contained him and a fast recall finished him off. His made no attempt at a push all game and my first attack killed him rather brutally.

On a sad note, I think my desktop has finally died. It's been humming loudly for six months or so and claiming that it has had a critical fan failure. I hadn't turned it off in a week or so and this time when I did it's been refusing to turn back on. So no replays for now but I will get some.

Edit: I took it apart and hit it a few times and stuff and it has risen. I've been sort of compiling a rep pack for a while now so I can either add these reps to that or post them separately. Whatever people want.

After our cw game today didn't happen my clan got kind of antsy for some action. So they arranged a showmatch for ToT)ClouD( and I. Naturally I was happy, it's always an honour to play a ToT. Also, having slept properly I was quite on form and hoped to put up a good show. So with half my clan watching I played a bo5 with ClouD.
First game I picked Loki and he said he didn't like PvP on Loki so went Zerg. We both opened by taking our two naturals and macroing but I struck the first blow with a darksairdrop at the natural behind his main, destroying it, killing a lot of lings and a few overlords. A minute later 2 shuttles hit with simultaneous storm drops, doing some more damage. I laid the gateways down and got the upgrades and with a weaker economy there was only so much he could do. Fast hive and cracklings delayed the inevitable but the first game went to me.
We played our second game on Blue Storm, again a PvZ. He opened 9 pool but did not make more than 6 lings, instead macroing heavily. My fast expand was delayed by the threat of 9 pool and when a morphing hydra den was scouted my tech was slowed by threat of a hydra allin. We entered the midgame on 3 bases each but his contains of my expansion attempts and mass lurk centre defence would not give way. After a particularly futile attack I was overwhelmed. This game also saw a very impotent attempt to work dual robo reavers into my build.
The third game was a PvP on Python. My 1 gate fast core opening successfully held against his 2 gate zee opening with 0 probe losses. My dragoon against zealot micro cost me a dragoon or two but I successfully expanded much faster than him. Laying 4 gates and pressing the advantage I broke into his natural and started killing probes. His probe and goon micro forced me to retreat but my greater goon numbers could always attack again whenever his probes returned to mine. I killed significant numbers of probes before darks forced me to back away. ClouD promptly expanded and macroed, knowing he was behind and needed to recover. I lost a dragoon or three walling my ramp but cannons arrived in time to avoid any probe losses. Teching speedlots and archons I pushed out with everything I had the moment obs were done. However ClouD had superior micro and defeated my army.
The fourth game was a PvZ on Python. My 2 gate rush failed to do any real damage against his cross positions base. He suggested that perhaps I should proxy them and a debate about builds ensued. I transitioned into a fast expansion and contained his attempted expansion at the corner with cannons. My first attempt to move out with zees and stormers was rather brutally stopped by mutalisks, costing me a great many stormers. However my second attempt, with zeechon, managed to kill a natural expansion, ClouDs 3rd gas. Taking my island and massing units I again contained his attempt to take that 3rd gas. However cracklings and lurkers destroyed my zeechon force and ClouD promptly double expanded to the main and nat I'd been denying him. With my main mined out (and the probes shuttled to the island) and my nat near mined out I took a corner and started pumping darks. Winning a large battle in the centre (largely due to late overlords) I proceeded to destroy clouds corner expansion. However a crackling lurker swarm drop destroyed my island, swarm making the cannons useless. On 1 working base to Clouds 2 (a main and a nat) I lost map control to ultraling and was forced to gg out.

I lost 1-3, with 2 losses to his off race (which, for the record, is still ridiculously good ). Some very nice games though, and I definitely pushed him in the PvP. Afterwards ClouD said lots of nice things about my skill which made me feel warm and bubbly inside. A manner and very strong player.

Replays: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=RP1KS0L4

Just had a long discussion with NeO)ReSpOnSe about when you should scout when 2 gating on Python.
I argue that sacrificing 1 of your 7 probes to find out his build when whatever he is doing you're going to make zealots is redundant. You need to know where he is and if he is 9 pooling but in no real hurry. You can bring your first zealot back and wall in loads of time with a 10 scout.
He argues that the ability to delay their hatchery is critical for a rush, and here I agree. However 10 scout can delay the hatchery of the first scout location and 8 scout cannot delay it of the third. Therefore the only time this would make a difference is when they are on second scout, ie cross positions. When they are cross positions the delay is insignificant because of the longer distance and you shouldn't be rushing anyway. Especially given the fact that most zergs will just instalay a pool when you block their hatchery.
Furthermore the only situation in which you gain any advantage from the 8 scout is when they go 12 hatch 11 pool.

So basically you gain scouting information which you did not need and changes nothing. And 1/3 of the time (when they are second scout) you can (with good micro), assuming they are doing 12 hatch 11 pool (which they don't always), gain an advantage by slowing their nat hatch. Which would be awesome except they are cross positions.

Here is his rebuttal and counter arguments.

So it's been a while. I played a lot of games the morning after the ItsSexyTime marathon and in my semi asleep state I lost them. I got tilted and kept playing trying to get my position back. I kept losing and started playing awfully. Truly terrible. Since then I've lost the drive to stay at the top. I've made a dozen new accounts and reset each of them once. Once I get back in the game I'll start regularly posting and updating again. For now I'm too pissed off and angry at my play to seriously attempt ICC.
I have a lot of replays of me bashing noobs but to be honest they're worthless. And I have a lot of replays of me playing awfully which I will show if anyone asks (some humility won't hurt) but I'd rather not.
So yeah, I suck right now and as such I'm playing less. But I will be back, I'm aiming for B+ this season (I think my PvZ is already there but my PvT is C+ or so and my PvP is B-ish).

Sorry for the failure to keep it properly updated, I tilt too easily.

So I log on today and ItsSexyTime is on. He's regained C rank (I busted him down before) so I ask him for games. Little did I know I had just started an epic 17 game long, 4 hour series in which I'd realise just how far apart A- and B- are. He took the first 3 games with relative ease. Although in the second one I had a big advantage (2 base each and map control) his abusive drop play clawed it back. From there on I took about 1 game in 2 for a bit before he finally worked out my game and took 6 straight wins. In a few of them I made huge mistakes after gaining an advantage but I can unreservedly say he's a very respectable opponent.
Overall I lost 4-13 which I'm not at all ashamed of. He's a high level opponent and I feel I raised my game a lot to take him down when I did.
He's currently C+ ICC with only 8 losses and I take more than a little pride in being responsible for 6 of those.
This does however mean my overall ranking now sucks as I have less points than I did yesterday. However I'm hoping that my end season ranking (the one that actually counts) will be higher as a consequence of the games I played today.

I have to dash to university now but the replays will be uploaded later.

Replays. Some from yesterday (when I hit my high of 4800) and the 17 from today.
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=31VEHJH3