As we showed up to the event, we were told that we could all set up early and practice. We all got there around noonish, and the Quake games were to start at about 4 pm local time. Unfortunately, we didn’t even get to play practice games until about 4 pm, so we all just waited around - explored the exhibits, listened to music, read, browsed the internet, etc. It didn’t bother me so much because, as I said, I did not have to play until Day 2 of the tournament. My plans were to get some practice games, get the feel for LAN ping, check out some good matches, and root for Chance, who played his group matches on Day 1.

When things were going, Chance, on paper, had a pretty tough group. The first match casted was between Strenx from France and Madix from Sweden, so seeing them play would allow me to judge how skilled his opponents were. They really did not appear to be in great shape, and I assured Chance he should beat them both. Cypher, a young player from Belarus who was 2008’s best player overall, on the other hand, was the top seeded player in Chance’s group. I told Chance before he even played any matches that, no matter how his game vs. Cypher went, he should not get intimidated or worried about the rest of his group.

As I watched Chance’s games against Cypher soon after, I was pretty disappointed. The maps were ztntourney1 and qztourney7, and Chance kept both games fairly close, but could not capitalize on the crucial moments. There were a couple times where Cypher would be completely cornered or at least vulnerable, and so little damage was done. Against an opponent like Cypher, those opportunities must be taken advantage of. Chance ended up losing 0-2.

Then he played madix and strenx. I don’t remember a whole lot about these games specifically, but Chance just was not playing to his potential. I had just been playing Strenx and Madix in practice games on LAN too throughout the day, and I determined first hand that chance should beat them. In the matches, Chance’s aim was just not punishing enough, and although Chance beat Madix, Madix 2-0’ed Strenx and Strenx lost 0-2 to cypher. This meant that Madix would advance in his group along with cypher, leaving my practice partner behind.  Also, a note for the day: Jibo assured me that Cooller would show up for sure. So at least I didn’t have to wonder anymore.

The next day came and it was time for me to compete. My group was Spammah (a local United Arab Emirates hero), Spartie from Sweden, and Cooller. The last two don’t need an introduction, as they are pretty huge names in the Quake scene. As I said before, Cooller is a Russian, one of the most famous players in history, and Spartie is arguably the best Swedish player at the moment, viewed by most people as a top 3 player in the world.  Luckily, I was scheduled to play Spammah first, while I could watch Cooller vs. Spartie. Spammah was an easy win, and then I got to see Cooller’s game. I could tell Cooller was definitely in shape. Maybe not at his 100% best, but he clearly had been practicing a lot. His timing and control was like it used to be, and he ended up defeating Spartie 2-1.

Spartie was my next game. I knew that If I would defeat him, then that’d mean I would advance, because Spartie would have lost to both me and Cooller, while I only would have lost to Cooller (potentially). The maps chosen were qzdm13, qztourney7, and ztntourney1. What’s interesting is that I actually hung out with Spartie at the mall in Dubai a few days before, and he had told me that when we played, he would probably drop tourney7 against me (in the group stage, each player can choose a map to eliminate from the map list for a particular opponent). I said I’d drop qzdm6 vs. Him. I kept my word, and then he decided to drop qztourney9 vs me instead of what he had promised. I guess he saw me practicing qztourney9 a lot in practice games.

I was feeling pretty good because of the practice games I was able to have before the match. But the first map, qzdm13, turned out to be pretty bad. I don’t really know where my head was, it was like my hands were operating without my mind’s consent. I was knowingly making bad decisions, but they were happening against my will. It was very strange. Then I decided to take some big risks about halfway through since it was either get lucky or go home. Nothing went my way and he won by like 13 frags or something. Then the next map was qztourney7. I wondered how well I would bounce back after such a big defeat on map 1. I put on quite a show. I hit everything and controlled
everything, not giving an inch. I ended up winning like 24-0. Then came the 3rd map, ztntourney1. I hit a lot of good shots on this one, and caughtg Spartie at strange spots. I went through the motions, not doing anything risky. I controlled the items and positioned myself properly, as is the essential strategy for that map, and took another convincing win.

Having secured a playoff birth, I still had to play Cooller, and it was a pretty highly anticipated match. The maps were: ztn/t9/dm6. On ztn I had a good start, and then I made a mistake or two. Control ended up going to Cooller, and I couldn’t regain it. He had the entire map on lockdown basically, and I didn’t pull any sick shots or miracle moments, so he took a fairly convincing win on map 1. On tourney9, the game was fairly close, and he had a lead for the first half of the game or so. It was extremely frustrating near the megahealth area. He would go for mega no matter what, even if I purposely baited him to go there and take tons of damage. I almost killed him like 3 times right before the mega would spawn, but I could never finish the job. Then as time went by, I got control and basically ran him over for the last few minutes. It would now go to dm6 for the tiebreaker. I don’t know what to really say, I feel like I missed a LOT of shots, which you simply can’t afford to do on this map. Cooller had timings on mega and RA perfectly, and played extremely well overall. He ended up taking the match.

Having secured a playoff spot, I wondered who my first opponent would be. The drawing went down, and I had to play Cypher. I was hoping for a lesser opponent, but I didn’t really sweat it. I figured if I were to win the whole thing, I’d have to beat him anyway potentially down the road. So the next day gets going and I am in the last of the first round of playoff matches. In the playoff bracket, the map selection format was different than for the group stage.  Whereas in the group stage, matches were played best of 3 maps, with each player eliminating a map, in the bracket stage, matches were played best of 5 maps, with players’ map preferences determining the order in which maps would be played. 

The map order ended up being t7/ztn/t9/dm13/dm6. I had stated that if I won my map picks (t7/t9), that I should walk away with a victory. T7 started and it was closer than I was comfortable with. I felt like I should have beat him really bad and not even have to worry about the last few minutes. But the game was pretty intense and I didn’t capitalize the way I should have,  but narrowly won 6-4. A win’s a win, right? Then came ztn. This was probably the map I look back on most that I should have done better on. I had another good start, like I did vs. Cooller, but I couldn’t maintain control and secure a win. I knew that 3-0ing Cypher in this particular map order was my best shot at advancing, so I was disappointed. Then came t9, and this felt like a pretty easy win. I don’t think he’s that great on this map yet, as it’s one of the new ones in the pool. But I played well and took the map lead 2-1. Dm13 would be yet another bad performance on my part. Cypher just walked away with dm13, and he didn’t really earn it the way he did on ztn. I played bad. Then the tiebreaker was dm6. He had a decent lead about halfway through, and then I regained control, I was like 310 total health heading for YA where I spotted him - and he was weak. I missed two rails and ate two midair rockets. If that moment does not happen, or I at least hit him with 1 of the rails, I feel I could have came back and won. Unfortunately, Cypher secured the win and he advanced.

I was really mad at myself right after the match, mainly because I thought dm6 came down to a bit of luck. I figured I wasn’t in shape just yet to win the event most likely (I’m still newer to this version of Quake than any other of the top players), so I shouldn’t be too upset for what took place. A top 5 finish against the best players in the world is nothing to be ashamed of, I suppose.  But I won’t be completely satisfied until I walk away with a tournament victory.

The last day of Dubai we went siteseeing - me, Chance, and Stripy. We saw the largest building in the world, and went to the mall where there’s a skiing area with artifical snow. The city has tons and tons of skyscrapers and office buildings. A lot of it is still under construction too. I told myself I would practice hard for the next few events, so let’s see what happens!

This post was written by Tim “DaHanG” Fogarty, Executive Director of Team EG; you can follow them on Twitter to keep up with the latest.  

Past Accomplishments:

• Best Quake 2 Player in the World
• 2nd Place, World Series of Video Games Quake 4
• 3rd Place, QuakeCon 2008 Quad Damage Tournament
• 4th Place, QuakeCon 2009 Quake Live 1v1
• 1st Place, QuakeCon 2009 Capture the Flag

"...Wait, that IS our plane!" Our plane had a hole in it.  This didn't seem to unsettle anyone else in our group, or in the boarding area, but I found it a bit unusual that a Boeing jet would intentionally be designed with a big piece of paneling missing.  I didn't want to let it go, and I asked the gate attendant just to make sure.  She claimed it was part of the design (although she didn't actually go look at it), and that was enough to get me on the plane.  It was a bit of an old jet, but we arrived in Beijing after a bit of a bumpy ride.  Our flight to Chengdu was fine, too, and thankfully the plane was holeless for that flight.

(Note: we later found out that Boeing actually did make a limited run of 700-series jets with paneling intentionally missing by the exhaust pipe)

After a day of rest in Chengdu, and several terrifying experiences in taxis (which, in China, seem to follow no traffic laws whatsoever), it was time to head over to the tournament.  Our matches weren't scheduled until the afternoon, but Jordan "n0thing" Gilbert (one of the team's more famous players) and I decided to head over to the eSports stadium early.

One of the things you always look forward to, and have to deal with, when going to a Chinese tournament is the fan culture.  Generally, in terms of eSports fandom, Asia is the most evolved, followed by Europe, with North America the furthest behind.  For certain games, like Counter-Strike and WarCraft III, there are no more rabid fans in the world than the Chinese.  So Jordan and I were prepared to encounter crowds as soon as we came within 1,000 feet of the venue.

Sure enough, as we were walking towards the building, a group of fans came running towards us with pens and mousepads, asking for autographs.  This would be a pattern for the rest of the trip.  We waded through this crowd, walked into the stadium, and were greeted by a tournament area absolutely full of players and fans.  After some filming, and more autographs, we settled in to watch some of the early matches.

The first day of competition was exhausting, but went well.  The main competition in our group was MiBR (Made in Brazil), the best Brazilian team.  We knew that if we beat them in our first match, we'd be in good position to move on, regardless of the result of our other group match.  We had a bit of an advantage on them in that we had been in Chengdu for a few days already, while they were playing after arriving right from the airport.  Sure enough, we beat them fairly handily, 16-6.

At eSports tournaments, there's a lot of waiting in between matches sometimes.  And when you're in a new timezone halfway around the world, this can be brutal on your internal clock.  After playing our first match, we had a four-hour long wait until playing our other group match, and the wait really affected us.  By the time the second match began, the players were zombies.  We ended up losing our second match in close fashion, but still moved out of the group.

At night during the trip, we used our free time to enjoy some of the local food.  The highlight of the cuisine in Chengdu was definitely its famous spicy hot pot.  For those of you not familiar with hot pot, you're basically presented with a large pot of boiling broth in the center of your table, and you dip various raw meats and vegetables into the pot to cook them. 

I had been warned about the unique kind of spice offered by the Chengdu hot pot; friends had told me it was nothing like any kind of spice I had experienced.  They were right.  The broth was very spicy, but not with a burning sensation like most of our spicy food over here.  It was more of a mouth-numbing spice.  I didn't find myself grasping for water... I just couldn't feel my mouth.  In any case, it was good.

On the next day of competition, we were slated to face SK Gaming from Sweden in our first single-elimination bracket match.  The format for the match was best of three maps, so the first team to win two maps would win.  We ended up with a map pool of de_train, de_dust2, and de_nuke - a map pool which we liked.  We knew that, despite the toughness of the opponent, if we could take the fist map, we'd be in great shape to win the match.

After a lot of battling, we found ourselves down 10-14 on the first map; the first team to 16 would win the map.  And slowly, but surely, we started to mount a comeback.  The score went from 10-14, to 11-14, to 12-14... and soon enough, we found ourselves up 15-14 with a relatively easy round to win the match.

In Counter-Strike, the game operates on a money system, meaning that you aren't just given weapons at the beginning of each round - you have to buy your weapons.  Players are given money based on how many rounds their team has won or lost, and how many frags they have gotten so far.  It so happens that in this last round of the match, we were high on money, and SK Gaming was low on money.  Meaning we had a considerable weapon advantage, and a much better chance to win the round.

But, well, that's why you play all of the rounds.  SK Gaming utilized a relatively unconventional setup designed to catch one of our players off guard and steal one of our more expensive weapons, which they could then use to take down the rest of our team.  It worked, and the match went to overtime, where SK eventually prevailed.  With our momentum crushed, they also took the next map to win the match.  We ended up placing tied for 5th at the tournament, not too bad for playing against the world's best.

Overall, it was a good trip, even though we left disappointed in our performance.  It's always encouraging to visit Asia as a professional gamer, because you're greeted with such enthusiasm and admiration from fans.  I signed more autographs on this trip than ever before at a tournament, and I even had one fan say - really - "It... was... my... honor" after I had thanked him for getting us a taxi.  Seeing that kind of enthusiasm for pro gaming is wonderful, despite the near-death experiences provided by the taxis.

We'll be back in China three more times before the end of this year (for the WCG Grand Finals, the International eSports Festival, and the World eSports Masters).  I guess I'd better get used to the driving.

This post was written by by Alex Garfield, Executive Director of Team EG; you can follow them on Twitter to keep up with the latest.

At least that's what we thought here at Intel once all the entries started rolling into Twitpic in our Extreme Photo Contest. We had a total of 36 entries, each showcasing their own unique spin on Lab Coat Guy, Leapfrog Guy, Jumping Kid, and yes the hamster too.

At the end of the contest, those 36 photos had garnered a total of 75,978 views and 1,583 comment votes! Nice work, guys! The photo that took the final prize was the one below, submitted by novah, with a total of 698 votes.

Don't worry, though. We've looked into it, she's on the up-and-up. So we're happy to showcase her work here and say a big thank you to everyone who participated and voted, making this contest so much fun to watch.

Stay tuned for more contests from Intel. I mean, hey, have you heard about the Rockstar Yourself Contest yet?