1. The level of competition is getting better each year. There are too many good players to even mention. Hardly anyone at these seems to be just getting by. I think in the future we will be seeing more of the so-called groups of death and more early upsets. I’d like to thank all the people who read my blog and said it helped them. Also all the people who treated me as if I was a hollywood movie star (I never took so many pictures in my life and it was fun). You guys are awesome and I can’t wait till the next tourney. My only regret is that I’ve become so popular and there are so many people its harder to remember the names.
2. Running and using the offset playbook continues to bring huge rewards to these tourneys. I’m still a run and shoot guy but it seems that in live competition these books are producing high results. It just sucks I can’t pass from those formations and I suck at the running plays. It just seems that you need better players to contain these runs than run and shoot runs. As I learned in my last game. Or perhaps this is my Achilles heel.
3. Underestimating anyone or any team is bad for your health. I think the matchups need to be kept pretty close to the vest. A team having a lot of good drones like Dallas, Saints and San Diego has a lot more value in the live game. As mentioned before the skill level to compete with anyone can be acquired quite quickly. Which means soon I expect almost every game to be a dog fight.
4. I think the biggest is making decisive decisions. Come in with a strategy and stick with it. If you have a gut feeling go with it. I had one on a 3rd and goal with 5 second and went for the win. It barely worked but it worked. I think the same guys are winning because they have better Tecmo decision-making skills.
5. The luck factor is the same as always. Bad luck happens and you must learn to minimize your risks.
6. We need to do more non tourney live events. Set up night was just as good as game day. I met a lot of people and got in as many games in 3 hours I did all day saturday. Tourney’s are great but let’s just get together play and drink. Tear up some random town for a couple of nights and all walk home really happy.
7. That being said try to make a tourney or another one if you can. No reason why we can’t do this 4-8 times a year. There is nothing like a live game day and the bigger the event the more fun. Check out tecmobowl.org for events. I’m having one in Buffalo on april 20th and we would love to see a lot of you make it.
tecmo101 
mort…what exercises can I do to get a faster thumb and win grapples?
Basic wrist exercises and stretches can help a little. It will make your fingers/thumb more responsive. Then I would suggest finding something to measure your tap. They have a tap testing program or you can buy an NES advantage. Which has a very nice turbo dial to go against that raises exponentially.
All that’s left is a technique. I use my index finger and tap right on the nails which gets good results. Louis clicks the button with his thumb which produces vibrations and a really loud sound. chet uses his thumb knuckle to vibrate it. I can’t tell how regulator does it but he somehow does something with his thumb that is incredibally fast.
I would suggest going against turbo trying all sorts of techniques till you find a fast way to tap you are comfortable with. I wouldn’t worry that much about being the fastest. If find behing in the top ten of tappers does more than enough since high level games rarely come down to tapping ability.
http://www.tecmo.us/arena/viewtopic.php?f=1118&t=19289&hilit=tap+tester&start=0
this post has the tap tester.
Mort,
I ask my bro in-law who is a doctor about getting hgh shots for my thumb and he said it would absolutely help. I am considering this, am I crazy? Is their a rule against this for tournaments that would make me inelegible?
nice dude. I highly doubt there needs to be a rule against this. In fact its making me wonder about a couple of guys. LOL. I think its just like the home run argument in baseball. It still takes skill to beat anyone good. Same as in baseball where it makes a few fly balls fly further. Probably not really worth it unless it also makes your hand amazing in other activities.
This ideal also makes me wonder in what other sports perfromance enhancers can help. Or even things that are not sports.
1. Why do they call you Mort? Isn’t your name Francis? Is it Mort from family guy or something
2. What are the top 4 run plays in your opinion?
3. If a good player had the worst running team in the game and got to set their playbook. And you had the best rush defense in the game but had to call pass everytime. Other guy runs the ball every play could you stop him from scoring, say he had 20 drives vs you startin at his own 20 yard line, how many tds would he score vs you?
3. Do you consider yourself to be a tecmo celebrity now days?
1. My middle name which i use as my aim handle.
2. I’ll give you my top three for each run slot in order. The reason is the best 4 runs are in the same slot. To me the top 4 is r and s sweep, t power dive, pitch l open and weakside open.
slot 1 toss sweep r, r and s sweep l, Fb offtackle,
slot 2 t power dive, weakside open, oneback sweep r
slot 3 r and s sweep r, pitch l open, cross offtackle
slot 4 fb power dive, r and s qb sneak, onsetbackdive/pro t dive
3. Hard to deny it after Madison. A guy tried to get me into his wrestling video. People who don’t play tecmo wanted to take a photo with me. More people than usual wanted to buy me drinks. Do I really care if I am famous? Not really. I love playing tecmo. At the same time I love all my newfound fans and can’t wait for the hot female tecmo groupies to show up on my doorstep.
4. I won’t hold my breath.
I’m sure it wasn’t how you wanted it to go down, but nice Top 8 finish at Madison this past weekend. Good to talk to you, albeit H-A-M-M-E-R-E-D at the Plaza, and I appreciate you giving me a ride back to the Badger Bowl afterwards. Look forward to seeing you at future Ohio tournaments.
-Kevin Cabarello
i did well. would have been nice to hold my 13-0 lead against regulator but it was not in the cards. It was a good night and I hope maybe we will see you in Buffalo april 20th. If not Ohio for sure.
Hey Mort if you could sit down with the guys who created the game and ask them any 3 questions what would those 3 be?
I would want to learn some Japanese first. Of course my first thing would be to bow and repeat doumo arigitou many times as these guys did an amazing job and provided me with so much fun all these years. My first question do they think they could have improved it with a better understanding of American football? My gut tells me no and that there loose understanding made the gameplay so great.
The second question is where they directly involved in the sequels and why they think those went wrong?
Finally I think I would ask them what they think about our hacked out online versions and how much others have learned about the actual programming of the game.
mort we need you to keep writing more posts.
Working on them. Just got busy for a time.