My second off-line attend

The upcoming saturday will be the day of my next attend of a off-line tournament.

I am not confinced that I am able to win, since Rotterdam is also attending. I have spoken with iG.Sushi and he is also confinced that Rotterdam will be winning this tournament.

I am of course hoping to make some exciting games, and see if I have improved, but I don't expect being improved a lot since I had lesser times to practice in Warcraft III. The reason is of my upcoming examination week which contains around 13 different subjects, and it is a lot to learn.
But although I haven't been able to practice that much, I still woke up early in the mornings before school to practice around 1-2 hours every day.

It will be a good experience and another motivation for my dedication in the game.
What I am really curious about, is about how my teammate dok\Harstem will achieve in this tournament, I am sure he is able to get a third place, and that's a good achievement looking at his current level.

My expectations:
1. Rotterdam playing for Serious Gaming
2. Sushi playing for Infernal Gamers
3. Sasuke playing for Keepers of Destruction
4. Kevin playing for DOK Gaming

I don't know all of the attendees, so I can't exactly guess it. But this is what i thought.

This season's Amateur Series have stopped, and the new series are upcoming after the Pro Series have been decided.
We are of course all thinking that Manuel 'Grubby' Schenkhuizen will take the first place.
But I think that there are more players that are aiming to get the spot. The unexpected can be expected.

I will practice hard these days to make my results turn the other way.
In to something promising for DOK Gaming.
I would like to make them proud of me! And i also hope that Kevin my teammate will do well next season and qualify for the next years Pro Series.

I will keep you informed about anything that has to do with my progress, but I am very tired right now because of hard work for school, company and my amateur-gaming carreer, haha.

Progress for now

Right now I am in my way of progessing my game experience, which is very stressful since I lose quit a lot in the last days.
I had a week in which I played really good games, and now it's the week in which I am playing the opposite.

But since I would like to stay progessing, and to get as good as possible I keep on playing even after losing a couple games in a row. My micro is really not what it was a week before the WCG qualifier, so that's what I got to work on.

I think that right now I am not really focussing on my micro.
I'm distracted by something that I even don't know a clue of, maybe it's because i make lots of hours together with my private life which contains sports, girlfriend, going out, family and a lot of other things. That's what makes my mind tired.

So here a little story, of my current status. Tommorow I will be playing the first game again since i joined the EAS again. I hope at that time I can play like i did before again and get a win. Soon will be the NK Gaming in which I would like to show some really good games.

Zotac cup #107

Well today i'm participating Zotac Cup number 107. Some really good players are participating. To bad i won't face SK.Lyn as he did not got through the next round (probably a def win for the opponent, cause it would be weird seeing SK.Lyn getting defeated in the second round).


Results 
Round 1 vs CuHuu (1-0 win)
Round 2 vs Dexster or Core64.Ruby (1-0 win)
Round 3 vs fr33sty1e (1-0 win)
Round 3 vs fr33sty1e (0-1 lose rematch)
Round 4 vs (not needed)

There are also some other dutch players participating such as EG.Grubby and iG.Sushi.
Here are their results.


EG.Grubby
Round 1 Auto to next round
Round 2 toys.sparki (1-0 win)
Round 3 Robber (1-0 win)
Round 4 [M]Cash (1-0 win)
Round 5 reprisal (1-0 win)
Round 6 Go)Wook (1-0 win)
Round 7 VortiX93 (2-1 win)
Round 8 ReminD (2-1 win)
Round 9 SK.Check (0-3 lose)
iG.Sushi
Round 1 Auto to next round
Round 2 vs Mohammad_Hyper (1-0 win)
Round 3 vs Solve (1-0 win)
Round 4 Passion (1-0 win)
Round 5 cast (1-0 win)
Round 6 Mojawi)FoCuS (1-0 win)
Round 7 SK.Check (0-2 lose)

Today's dok\Boomz0r news

Thanks for the support for the WCG qualifier, now here are my latest thoughts or stories to share:

Problems solved
After weeks without the ability to practice online because of some Warcraft III problems, which the cause was my firewall and gameport I can finally compete online again, and practice the way it should be.

Contracted by top dutch organisation
For about 4 months I have been studying the game right now and it seems that I am a more talented RTS player than an FPS player, I noticed. I have been playing CS 1.6 for about 2-years without any result, the only advantage about it was that I met a lot of new e-sport friends who were able to motivate me in that way so that I was still in love with playing games in a competive way.

In those months there were several organisations observing me. And what I heard the most is that they were really positive about my motivation, ambitions and hard practice. One organisation took his chance and contracted me since 29 September 2009. That organisation was: DOK Gaming. DOK Gaming has been a top organisation for most of the dutch players I think, they had a lot of teams in different games competeing on a national level, and some even on a international level.

Together with Kevin 'Harstem' de Koning i joined the organisation. And our first tournament was at 4 October 2009 under the name of World Cyber Games Dutch Qualifier 2009.
I didn't set any goals since the players were far more experienced than me, but I have learned a lot and altough I lost it gaved me even more motivation to practice.
My teammate did well as he got to the quarter finals and almost defeated professional player Sushi who plays for Infernal Gamers together with a lot of danish players, which one of them is a well known player (Rosenkill).

Upcoming schedule
Right now there aren't a lot of tournaments/LAN's to attend were Warcraft III is been played. But there are some in a short time, were I will have to practice really hard for.

08.10.09 Rejoin of Eletronic Amateur Series
18.10.09 Dreamhack Dutch Qualifier 2009
31.10.09 NK Gamen 2009 (Dutch Championship Gaming 2009)

WCG 2009

Well i'm back from the WCG in Scheveningen. I am sorry for not having updated the matches during the tournament, but it was a very busy day.


7:00 - 7:28 Arriving at the train station
It all started at 7:00 when i arrived at the train station in Enschede. I forgot my wallet, but luckely my father came back with the car because I also forgot my mobile. I feel really dumb right now.

Well we all meeted up there, and one of my friends arrived at exactly 7:22 with the train leaving at 7:28, he overslept.  One of the funniest things i saw at the time was that two of my friends made a large banner for me to support me. Thanks for that! When we arrived at some train station, which I have forgotten the name of my friends made fun of me by telling me to go out here, because we needed to step on another train to get to Den Haag Centraal but I was a lie, and they closed the train door with me thinking that the train was leaving without me. They got all funny moments of the day on tape by the way, and one of my friends will edit the movie, so get ready to laugh and make fun of me to. Oh and I also lost my Z key of the gaming keyboard (2nd picture) and called my manager to bring me a gaming keyboard, but later I replaced the key for some other key that I wasn't really using.

10:00 Arriving in Den Haag Centraal
Not the exact time, but around that time we arrived at Denhaag Centraal were we ran to the toilet to get a break and bought some food at the supermarket. When we were waiting for the tram one of my friends told to some adult woman that i was a guy from America and was the best gamer in the world. The conversation was really funny, but to hard for my to make a fun sentence of it, since my English isn't that good. This is also one of the things that we have on tape. Waiting for the tram we saw some other of my Warcraft-friends waiting for the tram (Kiezel together with his girlfriend if I am right, SnoDe and nl]Inhuman) and so we went travelling together.

11:00 Arriving at gamecafe Zafilon
And another time were I don't know the exact time off. Well around that time we arrived in Scheveningen Haven and walked to gamecafe Zafilon were the WCG '09 was held. We walked into the door and saw a small passage were we had to walk through one by one and confirm the sign up. They didn't even say hello! (If i am right. Yes I know I am a little forgetty sometimes).


11:30 The tournament
I waved/said hello to all of the players/managers/referees and so on. Next i started to warm up. I was quit shaky in the warm up making some weird macro/micro mistakes. I felt a bit nervous I think. So it was good that I was able to warm up to get used to the feeling of playing off-line since this is my first off-line tournament and also one of the biggest. They explained us the rules which weren't actually needed because it were just some social rules that everyone knows, but of course it's normal to explain them year by year.
One of the dumbest rules was that the crowd had to stand behind a line to look at the games which was actually stupid cause you weren't able to see a thing and there were no telivisions on the wall to even watch a game. So I felt a bit shit about my friends that weren't really able to watch. Well you could watched the other games because there computes had a good spot, but Warcraft III was in a pretty shit corner without a decent sight of the computers. After that we were able to look at the groups that we were seeded in. My friend Kevin 'dok\Harstem' was very lucky to get a in group with a def win because 1 didn't show up, and players that i could mistake in but i think that were on the same level as he is. Myself i was putted in the group of dead, hell or whatever you name it (in my opinion). I was seeded together with Sasuke which is a great player (Lanscape 1th, WCG'08 4th and some good position in ESWC'08?), Infantrist were i don't know a lot of but won the gamer01 cup from iG.Sushi with 3-2 and as they told me is a player that can be very suprising, and with TZC-yemtek which we didn't had a clue of what damage he could do because he wasn't really a known player in the scene.

Game 1 vs Sasuke (Twisted Meadows) 0-1
And so that groups were completed and we were able to start the games (bo1 in groupphase). My first opponent was Sasuke (NE) on Twisted Meadows. I did a veto to Gnoll Wood in every match cause i don't have that much experience with that map. It was a warm up for me, since i knew i would lose the game and i wasn't focussed in the official warm up. I wasn't playing like i should, but it wasn't that bad. I can't tell much about this game because i didn't really saw this match as i was able to win, but just to get my focus back on the tournament. Sasuke is a great player and it ended up in 0-1 for him. Good Game and Well Played.




Game 2 vs HelloKittey or Infantrist (Secret Valley) 0-1
HelloKittey was the name he used at WCG, but we know him as Infantrist (ORC). As I said before I would vote Gnoll Wood first. The final vote ended up playing Secret Valley. Which is an Orc map, but is the map i'm best at. In my opinion i played a long during game with some good micro's, but to less experience against all the strategies of Orc. Infantrist doesn't play like i'm used to play Orc. I'm used to the standard Grunt/Raider/Spiritwalker plus a Kodo build (hero's BM, SH), but he played mass kodo's. What I did wrong is that i spended money on 4 townportals which is 350x4=1400 gold and is a lot, and that was dumb. The reason i did it because my hero's were low on start and buying a second town portal isn't that bad, the third one was because I was pushing his base cause i thought i had to play more agressive but he got into my base and had to tp back. The fourth one i bought was because he took all the creep spots and there were only creep spots at the most bottom/top of the map (fountains of health) and the red spots, and since I knew he was going to push my base I had no time to run back. I lost the game because of that big expend.

Game 3 vs TZC-Yemtech-FX (Secret Valley) 0-1
Another Orc that i had to play on Secret Valley. They all kept asking me why I would seriously play a Orc on Secret Valley. I just try to play the map that I am most good at and that feels comfortable to me. My thought didn't really go out to the fact that a race has an advantage on a map for now. Well after I played a decent game in my thoughts versus Infantrist but lost I really wanted to win this game, but I was thinking more about winning then focussing on the game and that made me lose an early game. I made some unneccesary fiend losses which gaved me a high disadvantage in a short time. Yemtech kept pushing my base after that and I didn't had a chance to build up the army that was needed to make a difficult counter attack.

I was very motivated after playing the second game the way I wanted for most of the game, but felt pretty like a failure after losing my third game because I was thinking to much about winning. Right now I am pretty confidenced in my upcoming games since I had my first off-line tournament and gaved me a really good boost next to the fact that the Warcraft III scene is the best and closest one I have seen so far. My goals weren't really set on a rank to achieve because I knew the players had over 6 years more of experience than me with a experience of 5 months. The goals that I have set were to gain offline-experience and learning more of the game.

My teammate won the groupphase (second place I think) by winning 2 games (including 1 default win) and 1 lose. That made him able to play the quarter finals were he was facing one of the best at the tournament iG.Sushi. The first game it was iG.Sushi playing human with Kevin playing the undead race. Kevin made a good start and was able to stop the towerrush which was a really good job! After that he was able to kill Sushi's mountain king and destroy his expand and made him won the first game. No one thought he was able to do that, but i kept telling the people that Kevin was capable of suprising all in the tournament. The second game it looked like Kevin was winning the game, since he was in a big advantage by his playing style.

It was a Undead mirror, but unluckely Kevin made some mistake (which I forgot) and iG.Sushi was able to strike back and killed Kevin's Death Knight with the rest of the army following, 1-1. The last game it looked like Kevin was playing a really good game and I had some feeling that he was capable of getting a win, I haven't really watched this game every single second but it turned out into a win for iG.Sushi 1-2. It would be a great thing for both Kevin, me and DOK if he would win but he defenitely kicked some ass, and we are proud of what he did. Good job!

The half finales were played with SnoDe taking nl]Inhuman and iG.Sushi taking Infantrist. I didn't watch the game since I had to leave to get home quickly. But it were probably matches were you could say that all of them had a really good chance of getting into the final. At the end the final was played with iG.Sushi taking on SnoDe. And which iG.Sushi won like most would expect. I don't have the scores yet of the half final and final but i'll keep you updated.

It was a great day full of experiences, and I would like to thank everyone of the Warcraft III scene, DOK-Gaming, my friends and other people who supported me during this tournament.

WCG Preperations

Just one day away from the World Cyber Games qualifier of the Netherlands.
In a few hours i will start packing my bags with drinks, food, hardware, strategy notes and other things which are important to me tommorow.

I have been training for around 3 weeks now.
The first week wasn't that intensive since i was very busy.
I was able to train for about 2-3 hours a day that week.

The second week i spended a lot of time on practicing, but there was a little problem because my Warcraft III wasn't working. But i solved it but not in the way it should have been solved.
I didn't had the time to reset my computer so i started focussing on theoretical studies in Warcraft III.
Which actually worked out fine. I think i really got improved by this practice.
Next to this practice i also watched around 8-12 replays day by day and make notes of everything i wanted to write down.

In the last week I did almost the same thing.
Spending my time on studying more of the basics of Warcraft III. I think a lot of people (I didthe same) underestimate the time it takes to learn the full 100% basics of a game, and even if you know all the basics there is still so much you can learn.
Even the professional players keep suprising, like 'FOX|MooN' did in the last tournament (Intel Extreme Masters) doing a great microment with the zeppelin.
I have also been working a lot on my strategies. I have been working on the standard build with various ways to expand this build in different ways.

So tommorow is the day. I still have around 2 - 2.5 hours of practice before packing and getting a nap.