CPL Winter
Event Competitor Interview #2: Gary Sanchez
The
anticipation continues to grow as the Cyberathlete Professional League’s next
event approaches. Competitors are training both online and offline in hope
that they will have the skill and the power necessary to win first place.
GameZone continues its coverage of the upcoming Winter Event with an interview
with professional cyberathlete Gary “Siege” Sanchez. Gary tells us how he got
started in the CPL, how he’s preparing for the upcoming competition and much,
much more.
Question:
Tell me all about yourself. How old are you and where do you live? What kinds
of video games appeal to you the most?
Gary Sanchez: My name is
Gary Sanchez and I’m 19 years old, from Watsonville, CA (Near San Jose). Any
game that you can compete at a professional level has some appeal to me.
Q: How did you get involved
with the CPL?
GS: I formed and led a San
Jose area team, after competing in a few LAN Tournaments we won a CPL
Divisional, then a Regional, one thing led to another and before we knew it we
were attending the CPL’s 2002 Summer World Championship in Dallas, TX. Since
then we’ve participated in CAL-I (an online division related to the CPL) and
we’re looking forward to attend the CPL’s 2002 Winter Championship.
Q: It must be incredible to
know that in just a few weeks you’ll be able to show off your incredible
gaming skills to the entire world. Is the anticipation killing you?
GS: At the moment, we’re
just trying to stay focused and prepare for the competition itself.
Q: How have you been
preparing yourself for the championship? Once you knew that you were going to
be in the CPL, did you start playing games more excessively?
GS: While we were at the
last CPL we had decided that we were going to be attending the Winter CPL, so
since then we’ve been preparing by changing our roster, practicing as much as
possible (real life has a tendency to limit the amount of time you can spend
on the computer), and just going over different map strategies and positions.
I wanted to put together a lineup from the get-go instead of waiting until the
last minute so that the team would know each other’s playing style and have
established their team play; there’s always room for improvement.
Q: What will you do if you
win? Buy a new car? Put a down payment on a house? Go to Disney World?
GS: Disney World eh?
Hmm….I’ll get back to you on that one.
Q: Have you been involved in
any other video game tournaments?
GS: We’ve been to over 15
LAN Tournaments for Counter-Strike, most of them were local (in CA), and
others include Texas, New York and Arizona.
Q: Are you planning on
participating in any other CPL events?
GS: That’s the plan.
Q: Which game(s) would you
like to see in a future CPL Championship?
GS: Counter-Strike 2? Need
more Counter-Strike like games!
Q: When did you first start
playing video games?
GS: Hmm, I got a Nintendo
when I was like 5? I didn’t start playing games seriously until about last
year though.
Q: What would you say helped
you improve your skills the most: playing against complete strangers, or
playing against your friends and/or teammates?
GS: Playing against friends
or teammates doesn’t teach you anything new, especially if you play with them
a lot. Playing against complete strangers can give you a different
perspective. The best way would be to play with your friends/teammates against
complete strangers.
That’s exactly how I feel.
The more strangers you play, the better you’ll become.
Q: As some of the best
players in the world, what advice would you give to the many gamers out there
who are dying to make it into the CPL?
GS: Don’t quit your day job.
Q: What kind of a PC do you
use at home? Compaq or HP? Intel or Athlon?
GS: Personally, I have an HP
(most gamers build their own), Intel P4, NVIDIA GeForce3, and I use a
Plantronic DSP 500 headset or Sony MDR-V600’s. I have 1024mb of rd ram and my
ISP is crap.
Q: I’m right-handed, but
after playing a game or surfing the Web for too long, my right index finger
tends to get a little sore, so I’ve learned to mouse around with both hands.
What do you do to prevent your hands from being permanently damaged?
GS: Wow, both hands, you’ll
have to show me one day. I try not to use the computer too long without taking
a break, seems to work.
Q: As a "slightly" obsessed
hardcore gamer, I have to ask you: have you ever gone without eating so that
you could play a game longer?
GS: I just wasn’t hungry.
Q: Counter-Strike’s default
settings are good, but I usually like to customize my game’s control scheme.
What settings do you use?
GS: I use the CPL GUI and
default settings on LAN, when I’m the net I tend to lower my rates since my
ISP is crap. My controls are pretty basic, WASD for movement, however, I have
my spacebar as duck, shift as jump, and caps lock as walk.
Q: What is your favorite
game of all time?
GS: I played Ultima Online
for a few years, that was fun until they changed all the rules around and took
the fun out of PvP.
Q: Thanks to NVIDIA’s
incredibly powerful GeForce graphics cards, PC gaming is looking better than
ever. What games are you looking forward to playing the most this fall? Are
there any console games that you interested in playing?
GS: I don’t really care for
console games, [but] Golden Eye 007 for N64 was fun playing against other
friends.
Q: Speaking of which, what
do you think of multiplayer gaming on the consoles?
GS: It gives people another
medium to experience multiplayer gaming; variety is good.
Q: Would you like to develop
a game of your own someday?
GS: Never know, I’d hate to
limit myself by answering yes or no. 😀
Smart move.
Thank you for your time,
Gary.
Check out
the interview with the CPL President – Angel Munoz
Cyberathlete Professional League makes superstars out of gamers
with international PC game competitions
Check out
the interview with CPL competitor SirScoots
