> > > > Okay, I give up. I hate fighting games! Grrh! I have read everything in the forum on this dumb alley fight with Jean-Claude. I have tried every possible combination of lunging, spraying and stepping back, etc...to no avail. I have made a chart and tried to assign algebraic formulae to the whole mess. I've had it!!! Life is too short to spend the next ten years trying to clobber or get past Jean Claude! I have the: accident report, vault key, crowbar, knife, pulse gun, bazooka, uniform, spray and yellow plant. Please help!
> > >
> > > Try doing the same cycle a few times and then confuse him by doing something different that would normally get you captured.
> > > Hope that helps! :)
> > >
> > > Summer-stop and take a step back-Breeze
> >
> > Thanks for trying Summer Breeze but I'm still hopelessly confused. I understand the part about doing something unexpected. I just can't lick the sequence before that--frankly, being at my desk at work, bleary-eyed on double overtime is starting to look better than proceeding with this fight. Boring....! A game should never be so difficult that you just want to give up on it. I'm getting to that point and I've loved this game--so far! Anyway, thanks for the advice and maybe I'll try again---tomorrow, next week...next month....
>
> Try this and see if it helps: there are only a few different places you can be in the fight (I don't remember exactly, but I think it's 6, surprisingly few). All that you need to know to know what place you are in the fight is: (1) which way J-C is leaning (stumbling foward, falling backward, or neither) as described by the last action, and (2) which items have fallen on the ground.
>
> You DON'T have to go through a lot of cycles to win. In fact, you can win the fight just 3 moves after starting (you know you're back to the start when J-C is not stumbling forward or backward, and you have all the items you started with). I'll also say that at one stage you have to resist the temptation to pick up something which you just dropped, lest you lose an immediate opportunity.

Hooray!!!! Hooray!!! Hooray!!! I got it almost the first time around after a good night's sleep and rereading Summer Breeze's message and reading yours through one time, Gremlinn. Thank you both so-o-o much!!!