The CPL World Tour 2005 has finished. A leap in professional gaming has happened. I have been lucky enough to have participated in it. It was a $1M tour, throughout 9 different countries, these countries being Turkey, Spain, Brazil, Sweden, United States, United Kingdom, Singapore, Italy, Chile, and the final being held in the United States again.

Each stop contained $50.000 in prize money. This would be given to the best 16 players of each tournament. The final would have $500.000, given to the top 16. The final match of the world tour would contain a quarter of a million dollars, the greatest amount ever to be given away in a gaming match.





A new year, A new competition

It all started in February. Fnatic's new PK player gopher, EYE's sakh, fnatic's gellehsak and I are practicing for the first World Tour stop in Istanbul. One week of intense training, one week of frustration as well, the game version was 1.6. There were many bugs, including the dead body bug, and the FPS bug. There was also no rocket fix, so one rocket near you would almost give you full speed, giving ridiculously fast game play, being more about running than anything else. After a week we went to the tournament, only to be amazed by a cancellation of the Tour stop, thanks to heavy snowy weather. Not a good start.

Luckily for us, Intel stepped in by still wanting to give prize money, so they gave $20.000 to the best 6 players of the tournament. It was held in a convention centre of the Radisson SAS hotel. The admins worked hard to get anything out of the tournament, which they did. There were allot of delays, the tournament was to the worst organized tournament I've been to. But, that's only logical, seeing as they decided that they would hold a tournament 1 day prior to the actual event.

Food poisoning

On Thursday we found our way to an internet cafe. People wanted to practice a little bit before the tournament, as there was no BYOC and no practice opportunity during the actual event. We got sat on crappy computers, not being able to run PK properly. A few people got good PC's. I asked if we could be put on good computers. They were able to give us good ones downstairs and I played some practice matches against Sean (daler) and Andy. Now the interesting part. I went to seven eleven for a hotdog. A bad hotdog unfortunately, as I had gotten food poisoning from it. I was in the cab together with Ztrider, gopher and gellehsak. I sat at the left. I started sweating and told the others that it was hot in the car. Kind of weird seeing as there was allot of snow outside and it wasn't hot at all according to them. I asked the cab driver if he could open a window. He did and it was a little bit better, but I was still sweating allot. My head felt light and then it came, I puked in an Fnatic shirt, as I took it off because off the sweating (no worries, I wore a white t-shirt beneath it, I wasn't naked). I then puked again and put the t-shirt in a bag. I entered the hotel, white as the snow lying outside and crashed on one of the lobby's couches. People thought I was really drunk or really high, but unfortunately I was neither of them. After a few hours it was over and at around 11pm I was 'fixed', 5 hours after I had gotten the poisoning. One of my weirdest puking experiences ever. Wasn't fun at the time, but now I laugh about it.

Turkey 0.5 Starts

My first match was against SIGUMA, an unknown player back then, happened to be one of my fans. He lost to Chris (CLains) in the preliminary round so he was seeded #32, and Chris was seeded #31. I beat him 2-0, first map was Sacred, which was close for the first few minutes but after that I went on a roll. Absinthe was a complete domination. My second match was against my boot camp partner, sakh, who had beaten Ztrider in the first round in a 3-mapper. I chose Sacred, and I just beat him on that map. He chose Absinthe, and I was fooling around. I was playing like an idiot, and he beat me on it. I was stunned, pissed off, and annoyed. How could I lose a map to someone like that went through my head? The 3rd map was Psycho, and I won it easier than I won Sacred. Few, close call, don't do that again! Next up: Stephan (SteLam). I feared him. I hated playing against him at that point. I was not playing well and the bad FPS computers didn't help my confidence either. Why I hated playing against him? That was soon to be confirmed.

The first map, Sacred, I picked it. Stephan had been boot camping with the Italians ForresT, booms, stermy, dav, and his German team-mates zyz and neok. He got 2nd place at an Italian LAN, losing to Benno (zyz) in the WB final, beating Nicola (ForresT) in the LB final, and forfeiting against his team-mate in the final, because of lack of time (I believe). So, why I hated playing against him? Well, one of the reasons was his back then well though out playing style. He timed every single item, his aim was superb and he played extremely good tactics. He attacked slowly, backed off defensively, and had a Quake3 like style. I remember this match very well, I was clueless, and he played good and had control most of the times. Every time he would do a fast attack on the gold after the teleporter (a move I did not know back then, I would always jump around it). It had me stunned in the beginning. I was running behind facts the first few minutes of the match. Luckily I restored myself and won the map with a whopping 1 frag. Next up, Absinthe, his pick. My 3rd tournament match on it, and what a match it was. Having a 2 frag lead with 30 seconds to go, I was running for my life. He killed me with around 15 seconds to go, which had me spawn delay; of course (spawn time is maximum of 5 seconds). I spawned at the upper RL above the SA, waiting behind the pillar for the match to end. He found me with very few seconds to go but nerves got him and couldn't kill me. Another 1 frag win. A big pfew again. I shook his hand and said good game. He played a great game, and I believe he played a better match than I did, but in Painkiller the best player doesn't always win.

First brush with Mass Media

The day was over, the next day we would have to be there at around 13:00. So what I did that night, I don't remember, it's been so long (12 months to be exact). What I do remember is, is when we got there, they were very late on the schedule. NFSU, CS, WC3 took ages, so we were delayed until 17:00. I stayed downstairs for 1 hour, but I got too bored. I went to bed, during the afternoon, something I never ever do. I am not a napping person, I don't sleep during the afternoon, but for some reason I did during this tournament. So I wake up 2 hours later, wash my face, and right when I want to leave the room, I get a phone call from Scott Valencia (CPL World Tour organiser). A Turkish TV wants to do an interview. These types of interviews were still very new to me, normally they would always be after a match or after I won a tournament. This time Scott told them they should interview me because I was the person who would probably win the tournament. I did the interview and went back to the group. What group you may ask? Well, because of this crazy tournament, we had not much to do during the waiting, so allot of the players hung out together.

The introductions

This is the tournament where I met people like tempus, Aphextwin, Ztrider, and others. We had some great fun during the whole tournament and it was the start of a pretty neat friendship, one that would last throughout the entire world tour.

Back to the tournament, I had to play my team-mate Andy (gellehsak). This was to be the longest match in the history of competitive Painkiller. The first map was Sacred. I was nervous, Andy was a very promising player, scoring 5th at his first LAN tournament ever at CPL Winter 2004. I had boot camped with him and back then I liked his different style. After 15 minutes, the score was tied. I remember a certain part of the overtime. He went in the teleporter to SA and I followed him. A shotgun hit in the back would have probably sealed the kill. Had I hit him, he would slow down, having no speed on the jump pad, and being an object with no air movement in the air. A solid chain gun or an easy mid air stake would have sealed that kill for sure. But I miss 3 shotgun shots, because of nerves. They were really easy shots too, but I just missed them! Finally, after 4 overtimes I got him. This map endured 23 minutes (15+2+2+2+2), which was one of my longest matches ever. I once played a Quake 3 1on1 Final on a Dutch LAN called Regroup, which endured 24 minutes. The second map was Absinthe, again a close match, but I beat him on it. I beat Andy 2-0 and I was up against Alessandro (stermy) in the WB final.
This is another match I won't forget in a while. There are many reasons for that. I played Alessandro in my first final ever, at the ESWC in 2004, where I completely outplayed him on Psycho. We practiced together before CPL Summer and Winter in 2004, and he had gotten valuable experience on that map, but yet I still picked that map against him because I was very confident on it. But I was wrong. He was beating my comfortably on it, winning 8-1 until... the server died. I was pissed off, but he was probably more pissed off than I was. There were around 9 minutes left, and we replayed the map with a time limit of 9. I won it, with a 7 frag difference. The score was tied, but no overtime obviously, because the game didn't know that this was a continuation of a previous match. We decided to replay the map and I won it. Bad luck on Alessandro's side. Shit happens. Next map, Sacred. I was playing well but he was simply playing better. In the last 2 minutes I was making a comeback, but it was not enough and it was stopped by Alex with a telefrag. My first loss on Sacred in a tournament, ever. I was unbeaten on it for 3 tournaments, but it had come to an end. The deciding map was Sacred again, so you can imagine that I was kind of getting scared. But this map was a completely different story, I completely owned him on it, and with 4 minutes go Alessandro said gg and quit. I had yet again won the winner bracket and I was in the final.
I watched some lower bracket matches; one was Alex (Ztrider, also known as Boy) against Jonathan (Fatal1ty). The map was Psycho, Alex was one frag behind, with very few seconds to go. He had just killed John, and would need one more frag to tie it up. But then it happened. The first match that was decided by a bug. Alex killed him in an awkward place, so the FPS bug occurred. The soul weapon was on the stairs, and the physics engine had a bug on it, making too many calculations for no reason, dropping the FPS to around 20. Unplayable. John spawned next to the Gold RL, an easy frag for Alex. But not with the FPS bug. John went through the teleporter and got away. He won the map because of it. Stupid game... He then proceeded to beat Johan (sakh), who had surprisingly beaten Andy in the previous round. Johan ended a solid 4th.

Road to Championship

John's next match was against Alessandro, who I had kicked to the consolation final. John won easily with 2-0. What was funny was, it was so late already (past 24:00), that the convention centre needed to be prepared for something else. We were moved to another big room in the hotel. Two tables were set up, two computers with monitors, one server, and 2 chairs. It was a funny setup, I liked it. Couches and other comfortable chairs were setup near the players. TsN was setup around 10 meters behind the players, having them to almost whisper. So, John beat Alessandro, and I had to play John in another final, my fourth.

It was my easiest final ever, I had no problems whatsoever in this one and I was mocking the game, saying stuff like 'random', 'luck', 'all stake' all the time when something bullshitty happened. I won yet another tournament, my fourth in a row and I was still unbeaten. A great feeling. I still had a bad feeling because the more smaller tournaments I played, the more players would catch up with me. Players like zyz, stermy, gellehsak, Fatal1ty, SteLam. This tournament wasn't a World Tour stop; it was 'just' a qualifier for Spain. I won $6.000. I had won everything but I still hadn't won a whopping $15.000, the first place for a win of a World Tour stop. Ah well, I would just have to wait another month for CPL to organize a new Turkey.

Recap

It was late; the final finished at 2:30 in the morning, John had just played 4 matches before playing me which might have been the reason of my easy game against him. After the final, it was party time. We bought beers and the crazy Russians had bought or brought vodka with them. Aim, maddog were completely wasted and maddog missed his flight because of that. Aim basically downed a whole lot of strong drinks. I was pretty hammered too, thanks to a manager called Yesy. He could speak German, English, Slovekian, Romanian, you name it. A funny guy, looks angry, but is pretty cool. Anyways, we were kicked out of the lobby because of too much noise and we had to go down to continue the party. It was there where it went wrong. We were way too loud, Yesy and I stood on the table and apparently screamed M19 M19 or something. I arm wrestled with Alexey (LeXeR), lost, and threw the table on him, to much pleasance of me and the other people. I also remember a discussion with destrukt, that Andy would definitely play top 3 at least once in the whole tour. We bet for $100, but I backed out of it after a discussion because I wouldn't want to bet on someone's results, so we just bet for fun. I won the bet at the last stop, but I don't think destrukt cares at all.

Why?

You might think, why write so much about such a shitty tournament. Well, that's a good question, but I have a good answer. It was at this tournament where I had the most fun. Like I explained earlier, all the waiting, it being 'just' a qualifier made the tournament a whole lot more relaxing. Players hung out with each other allot and it was just really fun. I think because of that reason that I remember so much of it; it was the first tournament of the year and was supposed to be the first World Tour stop.