Group of Death

Next week will have the most anticipated group of Starcraft players battle it out in the GSL (now WCS Korea). The format of the GSL starts with 8 groups of 4, with top 2 advancing to the next round, which is another 4 groups of 4, before reaching a straight knockout stage.

The group plays out as a mini tournament, where the 2 pairs play each other then the winner plays each other, and then the losers of the first games play each other to fight for their right to play the final match vs the loser of the winner match. Hope that makes sense... sounds really complicated =D

So pretty much the best 4 players in Korea (and the world) picked each other and now we see the craziest group of death in Starcraft history (however long that is).

To put this in non Starcraft perspective, lets say that in some weird situation the [Football] World Cup decided that the top teams would pick their opponents in the group. Whoever gets selected can pick the next team. Imagine the team ending up like this; (yes i know they're not no.1-4th in Fifa World Rankings...)

- Spain

- Brazil

- Germany

- Italy

I cant wait to watch this group! And I'm sure that many others cant wait too...

But what I'm really interested in is how doing this as a strategy works in the long run?

In choosing their opponents, Parting actually started out by wanting to play vs Life, so it was more of an ego driving / rivalry thing. Then Life chose Innovation... which was also kinda the same thing. Then Innovation chose Flash... coz why the hell not! At this point it was pretty clear that non of the remaining players wanted to be chosen for this group, so why not just go full out? Misery loves company, right?

Strategically it can seem like a pretty good idea. Its almost certain that the winner of the whole tournament is probably going to come out of this group. So why not make a group of death, where you can eliminate 2 of your biggest rivals? In fact you can eliminate one and have them eliminate each other!

It kinda has the attitude of doing something hard now, so that the journey to the end can be easier. Another point to make is that from a psychological standpoint, if you completely destroy this group, you have the confidence to win the whole thing and other players might be scared of you.

I doubt that during the picks these players were thinking this strategically, but it certainly brings up some interesting game theory style strategies into not going for the "norm" of choosing easier opponents. Or you could just win vs everyone and you don't have to think about any of this at all LOL. But i like it...

Bring it on!!

Volumeeeeeee!

OMG my eyes are bleeding with falling cards right now! LOL

I've reached 50k VPPs already so far, half way towards Supernova. I've worked out that when I reach it I will have 300k+ FPPS worth of bonuses to collect which will be nice.

I'm not really that proud of this leaderboard "count" but I guess its something to brag because doing this definitely takes some commitment. Please do me a favour and not look at the profits lol.

I am planning to add in some 30s when I can afford it so that I don't have to go so apeshit on the $15s in order to get to Supernova 200k... but we'lll see when I get there. At the moment the rakeback is all my motivation atm as I'm going through a rut in my game. I'm not really sure what is going on but gonna get some more coaching to find out.

Having a good schedule and planning is what has helped me get this insane volume in consistently  On a full day I plan to play 120 games. That's 3 x 40 game sets 20 tabling. Pre planning how many games I need for the month and breaking it down per day helps you plan things. I really want to his the 3k game mark for this month, so I'm choosing this number of 120 games, giving myself some leeway in missing a few days.

I also have a habit of pre-stating when I will play... like "ok, after lunch... gonna play!" or "gonna watch the tv show, then I'll play again at 10pm" etc. Stating that to myself is kinda like a mini commitment in my head and since I'm trying to be a man of my word, I wont break it... even to myself lol.

I have been thinking about switching the the hypers as well, since it seems that they earn you more VPPs per hour then turbos, but right now I'm not sure. Things are kinda tight and making a big change with no buffer is probably not the best idea.

Anyways, here is one of my favourite players JCarver, who has amazing in depth understanding of the game. On top of that, he has awesome free videos on youtube so please check out his channel!  http://www.youtube.com/user/JCarverPoker

Should being a Pro Gamer be Different to a Pro Sportsman?

If your son (if you have one for this theoretical situation) said he was going to be a Pro Gamer in Esports would you be pissed? What about if he wanted to be a Basketball player? Doesn't sound too bad now, right?

Really, what is the difference? One is more physical then the other, but if we used Pro Chess player then we couldn't use that argument. Truth be told the main difference is that one is more widely accepted then the other, being something that is cool and therefore worth pursuing. A load of money is invested into that sport, for TV, playing, promoting, sponsorships. Being successful at it means you become a millionaire  The image of it is something great, nothing to be ashamed with.

Now lets compare the similarities... They're both committing to training intensively for that game, dedicating themselves to studying all aspects of it. They're both competing to be the best, to win and to improve and learn from their losses.

We'll just have to see how Esports will expand if it does so to the level of sports... and the trend from the past 2 years says that it will get more popular, thanks to the help of online streaming events and gamers practicing themselves on Twitch.

This pretty cool documentary pretty much sums up why I choose Starcraft over all other games.



The new expansion Heart of The Swarm has finally come out. This expansion is the 2nd of a trilogy of expansions. Starcraft basically has three races, Terran (Human), Protoss (Psychic), and Zerg (Kinda like Bugs). Heart of the Swarm is basically the Zerg version, with the one player campaign mode following and controlling the Zerg race.

What makes this game interesting for the multiplayer is that there are a lot of changes by introducing new units, new abilities, and new upgrades. However, its not changed so much that you have to relearn everything completely if you've played the previous expansion "Wings of Liberty" (Terran's POV). So its the same game... but it isn't! =D

It will be cool to see what kind of new strategies are chosen at the high level pro scene, there will be a tournament this weekend and I cant wait to watch it! If your interested have a look its at MLG this weekend,  and there are always gamers streaming on Twitch.