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SithOfSpades:
I have been avoiding this since I have been a little embarrassed that the 1 Million has continued to elude me for this long, but here goes. I took it light on DK during the Junior open, and finally made some progress on that game. I think I have the knowledge to go after a KS, I just need to work on consistent execution. However, I am going to step back from Jr., skip the Crazy Kong Open, and keep my eyes on the prize. I have had some great advice from some great players and I am going to put the following plans into action:


* Back off on starts
* Play full games
* Practice without streaming
* Regular million point sessions
I am going to always be more conservative during starts. Simple bottom hammer strategies. Limited grouping or rejumps on barrels. No apex predator on rivets. Don't max leech the springs. I think getting bogged down in starts is hurting the amount of time I spend actually playing DK. This is in turn making me not as sharp throughout the bulk of the game.

With this more conservative approach I want to commit to playing out the full game. I feel like this will make each life matter more to me and increase my focus.

I want to add off stream practice. I plan to work on barrel transitions first. 5+ grouping next. Efficiently getting the purse on 4+ springs. The first thing is because it is the weakest part of my game. The other 2 things are because I could use them if I end up in a pinch for points near the end of a game. I want to have some comfort level with those 2 strategies as a possibility. I have a remix kit with the trainer, which should help facilitate this.

The final thing. I want to commit to playing a few sessions a week scoring a total of 1 million points even if they are not all in one game. I need to have the stamina and focus to keep playing that long, and I think this will help me improve there.

After the 1 million, I will put DK on the shelf for a bit and go all out for the JR KS.

rayfinkel:
I'm really happy to see you following my "don't worry about starts" advice, bro. Like I said, you have great potential and I think the million is WELL within your current abilities, but with life getting in the way (as it does), I strongly believe worrying too much about start scores is a massive mental energy drainer. Yes, they're fun to get, but far less important than your level 5-21 average.

I can't wait to watch!

SithOfSpades:
First off, I got the million and that felt great. I am going to be doing 1.1 million attempts for the foreseeable future. I think I have the right strategies and can play at high enough pace to achieve that score. Right now my major blockers are time and the passion to play enough. Without getting in enough hours, it is hard to maintain the consistency required to play at that level across 3.5ish hours. I am trying to squeeze in practice, but it is not a great substitute for getting in several attempts in week. It is becoming relatively rare for me to have both free time and a desire to make attempts happen simultaneously. I am going to try and push through and get more attempts in, but it is what it is.

On the hardware front, I currently have 3 boards and all are working correctly. I currently have a TKG-4 board with remix chip in my cabinet. My DDK board has been repaired and works well. It doesn't currently have the remix in it because I have to snip a wire and solder something to put it in, and my poor job at doing that was the cause of my old problems. Since I haven't had that in, I have almost completely lost my ability to play JR. Finally, I have a TKG-3 revision 7 (it has the correct roms). It is working, but it doesn't look as nice as the TKG-4. I am thinking about getting a JR board with a JR remix chip so I can take advantage of the new JR trainer rom. I also may just play JR on mame. I would like to go for a KS there also.

I am considering putting DK aside and going for KS and then the million on JR. My concern with that is that I am worried my 1.1 DK strats would suffer too much if I took 2-3 months (or maybe many more) to achieve that. However, part of me thinks some time away would make it easier to come back to DK and grind at the volume necessary. I may try a mixed approach, but that has some complications too.

I want to give my perspective on the Robbie Lakeman score submission. I am putting it here because I don't really think I have much to add to the discussion, but if someone wants a different perspective and cares here it is. First, I voted to accept the score, but I fully understand why it was not accepted. I voted to accept because I don't believe Robbie's attempt to cheat really influenced the game play, I believe Robbie has the skill to achieve the score without cheating, and I saw nothing in the gameplay that lead me to think otherwise. I also think that I am heavily biased by the fact that it is Robbie, some of the details around the score, and that it is the highest ever score. I think many of Robbie's supporters fall into this boat to a much higher degree than me especially on point one. For me, my only bias towards Robbie is that I believe he is capable of the score.

It is my opinion that if I (or some rando out of nowhere) submitted a similar tape and then someone else produced facebook posts of mine where I said I was planning to cheat at Donkey Kong all these "the gameplay speaks for itself" people would be firmly in the "easy reject" camp. I do see some of the other facts around the submission as making things more grey than that, but I put the blame for this situation on Robbie.

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