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.
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.
Gooooooooooooooo Larsz0r!
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