Walshy

I've been thinking a bit lately about stats after blogging about who I thought should (and ended up getting) Dallas MVP. What I've been thinking about specifically is if there is a better way in how they are calculated for determining MVP and just how they are compared to another individual in the tournament. It is impossible to ever make the stats perfectly show what someone contributed, they are without a doubt accurate but I feel like they could be shown much more accurately. A few ideas I thought of to possibly improve for example would be. First, I feel that calculating team slayer stats separate from objective. I think someone going hugely positive or negative over a tournament in team slayer would carry much more weight when separated from objective. Just being able to look at that stat alone I feel would be very interesting to know someone k/d ratio in ts compared to objective or being able to see average amount of kills, assists, and deaths in ts for each individual would be very comparable across the board since every team slayer game for the most part ends in 50 kills or close enough to that. Objective on the other hand I feel like wouldn't be as comparable across the board since the difference in game times. If you compared two different Pit CTF games stats you could easily end up comparing a 15 minute game where the highest kill count for one person is in the low 30's to a 7 minute game in which the kill count for person with the most is less than 15. A fix for this which I haven't tried out but thought it could be interesting/more accurate in comparing objective games would be taking the kills, assists, and deaths for the game and multiplying they by (15/minutes the game took). A 15 minute game would end up being the same stats, however a 7.5 minute game would end up doubling everyone's +/- ratio. Tell me what you guys think or what you think could possibly improve or more accurately compare stats across a tournament?

I feel like the MVP is or can be seen two different ways. One way is how valuable a player is to that team meaning how would that team play/place without that person. Carbons placings with and without Naded in the roster are significantly different taking both seasons into account. Whereas Instinct's placings with me or any previous roster has always seemed to be consistent with credit for that mostly going to Lunch/Roy as two of the members on every roster. A stretch of an example in real sports would be giving someone from the Detriot Lions MVP if they did the absolute impossible and won a regular season game, I'm no math genius but an infinity percent increase is pretty damn good in my book.

The second way, and the way I think MVP should be determined is choosing the best player from the best team with very very very rare exceptions. To me a rare exception for arguments sake would be someone like Barry Sanders who has won games with the Lions and did everything except the fumbles, interceptions and Jason Hanson kicking the extra points. I know what you're thinking, what about that one game Barry kicked two field goals while Hanson was sick? Anyways, before I go off on a tangent I believe that the MVP should be chosen from the best team Triggers Down. Personally without looking at stats I would have to flip a coin between Pistola/Heinz....SK can be the edge of the coin OH SNAP! <3 Justin. If I was forced to choose I would have to go with Pistola. He was the reason for the majority of my deaths without the stat page crediting him for any of the kills or Walshy anger due to chasing him. I now know what Seth Rogen felt like in Superbad all out of breath from trying to chase after the fastest kid alive. Although I guess I can thank him in a way for helping me achieve a personal goal of mine. MY FIRST POSITIVE TOURNAMENT IN HALO 3 HISTORY!! And just to be clear I'm talking about my frustration/chasing pistola death ratio. Still working on that other ratio....

We're going to start a REAL street team, we're currently working on an entire website for just the street team. This website will include the inside scoop on everything MLG, Kiaeneto, all the good stuff.

SO, as a leader you would hear about it all before ANYONE, you would organize the KST (Kiaeneto street team). You will come up with ideas for promoting Kiaeneto and getting everything set in action. We need some one dedicated, so that leads to part two:

APPLICATION:
if you want to be a team leader please email us as to why you would like to be a team leader. Let us know how much time you could dedicate to it, and why you want to do it. Give us your age as well. Let us know why you feel qualified to be team leader. Doesn't have to be super long, just has to be good.


We are also looking for section leaders, so if you would like to apply for that let us know as well. They will have less time dedicate and not as much responsibility.


all in all we are looking for one Team leader and a few section leaders. so let us know what (or both) positions you would like to fill.


shoot Lukasz an email, he is organizing the site and team here: lukasz@adjustreality.com

First and most importantly I wanted to just officially and in detail let everyone know about the charity organization that I’m involved with called Gamers Outreach Foundation (GOF). www.gameroutreach.org

What’s my involvement with GOF? I serve on the board of trustees as an advocate and representative for GOF. Why GOF? Besides trying to give back since I’ve been so lucky to be where I’m at and do what I’ve been doing these past years. The biggest reason I got involved with this organization was due to the founder and now one of my best friends Zach Wigal. First time I heard about Zach was in this article http://www.salinereporter.com/stories/032907/loc_20070329001.shtml

To sum it up, basically Zach planned this Halo 2 tournament for his high school and the event got cancelled by the local director of public safety due to the video game violence issue. Instead of just giving up Zach decided to hold another event a year after his first event and show everyone out there that video games aren’t what they are always portrayed in the media as. The event was a huge success and raised over 15,000 for Autism research. Fast forward a year after that event and here we are. Gamers Outreach Foundation 501 c non-profit charity. Unlimited possibilities. We just recently held a canned food drive at the LAN center Gamerz Live Lounge where we raised 271 lbs of food. We’re going to be building a video game play center in a Children’s Hospital. We’re launching programs to provide video games to troops over seas. We’re even working to help teachers who use video games for educational purposes! So what I’m asking for everyone interested to check out our website www.gamersoutreach.org Register on the forums, attend or stay updated through our site with our upcoming event Gamers for Giving II at Eastern Michigan University on February 27th, 28th and March 1st. There are many ways to get involved and support us; the easiest way to find out how is through our website.

Next order of bidness. Kiaeneto has been getting huge amounts of support and we recently have just gotten picked up in 3 local Play N Trade locations. So those of you lucky enough to be in the Grand Rapids area you can purchase a few of our newest designs at:

Play N Trade
2500 East Beltline SE
Grand Rapids, MI 49546

Play N Trade
2211 East Beltline
Grand Rapids, MI 49546

Play N Trade
???? Canal
Grandville, MI 49418

Lastly just wanted to give a quick shout out and a small personal update to all the people that have supported myself and whatever team I’ve been on throughout the years. Even though I don’t blog as much as I should or post on the forums I do listen to you guys. I recently took the suggestion off a few of my blog comments to read Speaker for the Dead after I made a joke about Ender’s Game and after reading Speaker I have to say it’s my favorite book to date. I have gone out and purchased the rest of the Ender series. (Last night I just finished Xenocide and will be starting Children of the Mind soon!) Besides reading I’ve been bowling a lot lately. I never like to tell anyone my choke moments but the other week I had eight strikes to start my game and ended up leaving two open frames to end the game with a 246. The rest of that night I ended up with a 236, 213, and 203 which is by far my best night of bowling I’ve ever had.

Thanks again for everything and please visit www.gamersoutreach.org :)

Gilbert Arenas isn't the only NBA player rocking out Kiaeneto. Check out Richard Jefferson wearing the flocking ravens design in the top left picture!

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Go pick up 994 magazine (October 2008 issue) in news stands everywhere!

Today my DNA was sent into space. Seriously.
http://www.pwnordie.com/blog/posts/2792
This whole thing started when I was contacted by one of the organizers of https://www.operationimmortality.com/ who told me that they wanted to have myself and Fatal1ty’s DNA to represent the gaming community. Who knew Ender's Game was a non-fiction book?!?! I’m stoked to be a part of something like this. I almost feel like I’m in the movie Armageddon. I’m basically like Ben Affleck’s character with the only differences being; Earth is my old plasma tv, instead of loving my girlfriend I hate her, and I don’t have a beard since I can’t grow facial hair. There is an incredible list of people taking part in this project such as.... Stephen Colbert; he can be Bruce Willis in my version of the movie. Stephen Hawking; he can be the guy that goes crazy and starts shooting the turret and we tie him down for most of the mission. Playboy Model Jo Garcia (I wonder if her sample is considered TNA instead of DNA), Olympic gold medalist Scott Johnson, and many more listed here: https://www.operationimmortality.com/about.html

All joking aside this is one of those things that makes me extremely proud of what I’ve accomplished in the gaming scene and to even be considered to be a part of this is more than I could ask for. Besides this being something that I will without a doubt remember for the rest of my life. In the short run this is one of those events that motivates me to keep giving it my all in the gaming community in the near future and really proud of what I’ve done in the past.

One last thing I wanted to plug! Our second gaming charity event is going to be February 27th, 28th and March 1st at Eastern Michigan University. Our last event we raised 15,000 for Autism research and hope to top that this next event. If you want details on attending, would like to help spread the word by doing something as simple as putting www.gamersoutreach.org in your forum sig or having us as a top friend on myspace http://www.myspace.com/gamersoutreach . If you're interested in details or getting further involved visit http://www.gamersoutreach.org or get in touch with my buddy/founder Zach Wigal http://www.myspace.com/zachsrockinmyspace

It sucks losing a tournament. It sucks even worse when you pour your heart and soul into the six weeks of practice knowing that there is no excuse for how your team placed. I know this because I haven’t left my house and I’ve been lying in my bed for 2 days straight and have thought about any possible excuse we could have. There is no “we’ve only been a team for 3 weeks”, “we didn’t practice as much as we should have”, or “so and so wasn’t on their game”. We practiced harder than any other team before Dallas and we earned a 5th place finish with that. This is the 2nd worst thing that could have happened to us this event. The worst, having any sort of excuse for how we placed. Because if we did have an excuse for how we placed we would have prepared for Vegas the same way we did for Dallas and have another well deserved bad finish. Our strats and play style at Dallas did not work and we are now aware that just because something sounds good on paper doesn’t mean it is practical to set up in a tournament situation against the top players in the league.

Dallas was not all bad; it was a tournament that made me experience two things. First, it made me feel like I did with my old team. By that I mean when the event was over, the first and only thought that went through my mind was “we need to practice and work on things”. Not once did I think if we had a different teammate or if one of my teammates was playing better that we’d be better off. That’s the sign of a team that is going to stay together for a long time, you begin to think of the four members as a team and rarely think of the individual performances. The best quote I have ever heard to describe this feeling to someone else is when I was at wrestling camp and it was from the head coach J Robinson of the Minnesota Gophers.

“Great teams are made possible by unselfish and disciplined individuals who are more concerned with team results rather than personal ones.”

That quote is exactly how I feel about our team and I’m excited to be practicing with these guys for Vegas and hopefully many more tournaments to come. The second unique experience I had at Dallas was what I stated earlier about having no excuses. In my entire gaming career I have never left an event without an excuse. This event really opened up my eyes because our team is going to be working on every detail of our game and we know what does and doesn’t work. We know this because there is no reason why something shouldn’t have worked with the amount of practice we put into it, if it didn’t work after that much time/practice the strategy isn’t practical. It’s nice knowing that we’re going to be able to prepare for Vegas knowing exactly what aspects of our game and strategies need to be scrapped. We get to leave those behind along with our Dallas placing and look forward to Vegas where we get one last chance to redeem ourselves.

If you're interested in helping a Walshy out send an email to info@kiaeneto.com with your local lan center's name and phone number. If you sent in this information before please send it again just to be safe. GRACIAS!

I'm really interested in co-forging a map with someone with alot of experience since I don't know how to do anything with Forge. I have some ideas for a map layout and need someone willing to put the hours into making it happen. I know what you're saying, "why would I want to make a new map, do all the work, get paid nothing and let Walshy take credit for it?!?" I'm obviously not going to do any work and will take all the credit for it but I am willing to give whoever works on this with me my leftover Christmas giftcards that I haven't used yet; 2 Meijer's $10 gift cards (that's just 80 dollars short of $100 for those of you too lazy to do the math), 1 $25 Friday's gift card WITH the bonusbites card still on the top worth another 5 bones, and 1 Gamestop card with $17.46 on it. I can also hook whoever up with more half used giftcards if money is a factor in your decision. So if you're interested in helping me forge a new map just post a comment down here with a link to a previous map you've created and I'll get in contact with you over AIM or XBL.

So we have an incredible ride down there thanks to everyone but Hammer (even though he drove).
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On the drive down

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From left to right; Shelly, Mike, and Hammer

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What the jerseys look like to Cleveland fans

So first off if you notice, Hammer is smart enough to park his car with his license plate facing the wall so that people don’t know that we’re from Michigan on top of being Wizards fans. But, right when we walk out of the parking garage we start getting trash talked to us…. from a bum! It’s not like he just said something and walked away, HE FOLLOWED US FOR 5 MINUTES. This is a person who is starving, tired, and doesn’t own a thing to his name and he trash talks us (no pun intended) while we can’t say a thing in return. The entire time people are passing us we keep getting things yelled at us which we block out until a guy comes right next to us:
Random guy- “You’re going to get murdered out here with those jerseys on.”
Hammer- “ARE YOU MIKE WILBON?!”

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We go from getting haggled by a bum to getting props from Mike Wilbon

We ended up talking to Wilbon for a few minutes before he had to head out. Nothing too crazy happened during the game except us getting yelled at, getting boo’d on the megatron, and someone threatening to hurt us in the bathroom during half time. We ended up winning the game by 1 (which doesn’t matter now since the series is over). But it allowed myself and StrongSide to fly out to DC for Game 6 and hang out at Gilberts crib for a few days…

We went bowling, free shopping spree at the Adidas store, Brazilian steak house, and just hung out at his house playing Halo and GTA4. I’d go in more detail but I think StrongSide is going to blog… plus I’m lazy.

Wow what a night, where to start? First off, no I didn’t forget how to count. I just didn’t attend game 4. The day starts off with me being super clutch and picking up some good comedy CDs to listen to on the four and a half hour drive to Cleveland. So I grab FOTC, Brian Regan, Nick Swardson, Demetri Martin, and The Best of Rodney Dangerfield. I’m totally pumped to just laugh the entire way down there. Heading down to Cleveland with me is 3 of my friends Aaron Schellenberg aka Shelly, Mike Westveer, and Eric Hammersmith aka Hammer. Instead of taking my car my buddy Hammer offers to drive his Aviator down but forgets to mention one very very important detail… 30 minutes into the drive.
Me- “Here throw in the Brian Regan CD, he’s f’n hilarious”
Hammer- “Oh my CD player is broken, it just broke earlier this week”
Me- “….. Seriously put the CD in, I know you’re messing around since there is noooo possible way we’re going to listen to a different radio station every hour for the entire drive down”

However, he was in fact not kidding. He claims it broke by putting in a bad burned CD. I have never heard of a CD player breaking because of a “bad burned CD”. I basically did everything I possibly could to make the trip a success and because of one of Hammer’s crappy mix tapes, we are going to listen to commercials every 5 minutes. So I decide to make up for Hammer’s choke.
Me- “Pull over at the next Wal-Mart, Meijer, or Flying J’s”
Hammer- “Why?”
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$219.99 but worth every penny.

We were able to listen to great comedy during the ride, everyone wins. Except Hammer who I will one way or another make him pay for it. Sorry to cut this blog short but I gotta go catch my 4pm flight to head out to DC right now! I will try to finish the rest before Game 6 starts. To be Continued……

Going into this game was a surreal experience. I guess I must not be the lucky charm on Final Boss seeing how I went to Playoff game 1 and 2 with both ending in losses for Washington. Whereas Strongside and OGRE 2 flew out to game 3 to watch Agent Zero with me in his hometown. I got in town early afternoon so we had time to kill before the game at 8pm. What better way to kill some time than to knock down some pins at the local bowling alley? We played under the names:
“Swizzy” aka doctadunk aka Strongside
“MVP” aka OGRE 2
“Ritter” aka Rep Mark Foley aka Strongside’s friend
“Cpt Clutch” which happened to be a fitting name for the night.

Game 2 at the bowling alley we all decide to throw down 10 dollars since everyone knows game 1 is warm up and it doesn’t even matter who wins the warm up game. Very end of the game comes along and it’s myself and the MVP himself Tom far ahead of everyone else going into the tenth frame. Both of us had spares in the 9th and he was ahead by one pin in that frame so he probably won right? Using the crappy house ball I get 2 strikes and an 8 in the last frame to put the nail in the coffin and 30 bucks in my pocket.

After the bowling match of the century we went back to the hotel to change and head out to the Verizon Center. Keep in mind this is my first time going to a Wizards home game and it was such an incredible experience. Every other person is wearing an Arenas jersey. So many people are out there to see him…. We know him! We’re so lucky to have met him (even luckier that he is totally obsessed with Halo) and this is one of the moments where I realize how big of a deal Gil is. The majority of my experiences with Gil are on XBL or events outside of the court so sometimes I start to forget how big of a following he has. This game changed my perspective on that for the next year. Highlights of the game:
1. Gil getting called out during the starting lineup and the whole place going crazy.
2. Vash coming out to the ball game last second since we had another ticket. The funniest part about it was that he was going to meet us at our seats and I was just going to leave him a ticket at Will Call. But when I look at the six tickets I have they read; Section 110 Row F seat 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 16. Take a wild guess which seat Vash got.
3. Crazy old dude dancing away on the big screen. His move of the night was for sure the reverse sprinkler.
4. Wizards winning by more than 30. I just hope they don’t get too cocky for Game 4 because I see Cleveland coming out strong.
5. Walking by Soulja Boy after the game on the way to the Friends and Family lounge. I did get a picture with him but I really really wimped out on what I wanted to do. “Hey Soulja Boy, can I get a picture with YOUUUUUUUUU!!”

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I will not be at Game 4 because I had some family obligations I forgot about. But I’m up in Petoskey with my brother for the weekend and will be rooting for the Wizards from up here. For those of you who don’t know where Petoskey is, easiest way I can show you. Hold your right hand up like a mitten with your palm facing you. Petoskey is near the tip of your ring finger on the lake. Also if you haven’t had a chance to watch the video of myself and Gilbert on TNT, the link is right here: http://broadband.nba.com/cc/playa.php?content=video&url=http://boss.streamos.com/wmedia/nba/nbacom/tnt/nbalife/nba_life_arenas_042308.asx&video=blank&tab=tntchannel&nbasite=nba

Just got back from a looong drive home from the 2nd game (massacre) at Cleveland. The score says it all Cleveland won by 30 and nothing went wrong for them. The only possibly way I could ever be able to compare a NBA playoff game to a personal tournament game that I’ve experienced would have to be our Narrows TS game against Triggers Down in Meadowlands. We weren’t able to get anything going; they murdered us like 50-25. But the biggest similarity I saw besides the score was that towards the end of the game and after while chatting with Gil was that the Wizards realized that the game was out of reach and in a playoff series it doesn’t matter if you lose a game by one point or by thirty. The important thing is that they try to move on from their loss and focus on the entire series as difficult as that can be. Highlights of the game for me:

1. Once again, getting floor seats. Not only are the seats ridiculously close but the even better part is that when I’m trying to clap for the Wizards I’m out of popcorn/peanut throwing distance from about 100 more people than where I’m usually sitting. Not saying I still didn’t get hit by any food, just saying I got hit by less kernels than usual.

2. Doing a pre game interview on the court with TNT talking about Gil and his Halo obsession.

3. Gilbert before inbounding a ball recognizes me in the stands and give me a head nod which results in every Cavs fan turning around to see who the hell he was looking at.

4. The guy sitting next to me and my friends bought us a round of beers when the Wizards were down by 20. I don’t care if it’s a pity beer, I’ll take a free drink any day.

I plan flying out to DC to watch game 3 & 4 this Thursday. Before I go head out there though I’m going to buy two new Gilbert jerseys since the one I’ve been wearing obviously isn’t doing the trick and if one of those is faulty then it’s gotta be lucky number 3. I’m off to catch a long night of sleep and will add more if I forgot anything in the morning.

So I had the chance to go to the Wizards/Cavs basketball game yesterday and I have to say that I had an incredible time despite the Wizards getting edged (fouled) out in the last couple minutes. Best moments of the game:

1. Getting my tickets and realizing Gilbert hooked us up with Floor Courtside seats 3rd row up.
2. Gilbert draining four straight 3 pointers with one of the being at the buzzer of the 1st quarter. I think I heard someone in the crowd after the shot say “He’s like the Walshy of basketball”
3. Lebron’s one handed dunk from Gibson. I swear a bead of sweat hit me when he made that dunk.

I also did a pretty fun interview/podcast earlier today with Gamers Corner. It wasn’t like typical interviews where they asked questions I’ve answered a million times. We had a lot of fun and check it out right here if you want: http://gamerscorner.mypodcast.com/2008/04/Episode_11-102123.html

Besides that just wanted to say thanks to everyone that rooted for us at Meadowlands. It was incredible going into the event hearing so much negative stuff about our team and immediately realized that the people out there doubting us were by no means everyone. We still have the best fans and will continue to dominate as long as you support us.

Also I’m going to be at Game 2 tomorrow and will try to give an update after that.

I’d like to start off by saying it’s extremely rare for me to share my personal thoughts, feelings, and life. Especially out in the open to a bunch of people I don’t even know. I’m very good at hiding my emotion and usually don’t feel the need to open up outside the small close group of friends and family that I have. With my manliness being at stake I want you guys to know I’m writing this for a few reasons. First reason is I just want to vent and get some things off my chest. Second I hope by giving insight into some of my life, that some of the advice helps others to deal with problems and relate to what I’ve been going through. Lastly I want our true fans and supporters to know what’s been going on outside of gaming and let you know how you actually make a difference and how I can’t wait to give you all the bragging rights you deserve come tournament season.

Where to even start… Fight outside of a bar that ended up in handcuffs? Friend from High School beaten to death downtown? Breaking up with my girlfriend of 2 years? Spinning off the highway at 60 miles per hour? Losing about four thousand dollars as a nice cherry to top it off? These last couple months have been a killer roller coaster ride. The only roller coasters I’m able to compare how I’ve felt would be the Demon Drop at Cedar Point (basically like the Tower of Terror at Disney but built with metal from 1450). I guess the only place to start would be a few months back where things with my now ex-girlfriend were heading south.

In December during one of the off periods with Nicki I was out with some friends to have a few drinks and forget about things. On this particular night it was just my best friend Josh, Josh’s fiancé Sara, Tiffany, Tasha, and I. Had some of our other guy friends been there or if we just kept our cool there probably wouldn’t have been a problem. But this night we went out with a small group to get together since I had been out of town for so long and Josh had been doing so many out of state construction jobs and we made it a point to catch up instead of just drinking. At the end of the night we headed over to a Ritz Coney to eat before we went home. While in line a couple guys sitting at a nearby table weren’t leaving the girls that we were with alone even though they clearly weren’t interested. Just to be clear we definitely had our share of drinks (along with our designated driver Tiffany) so by no means were the guys politely asked to leave by Josh when they were harassing his future wife and he was drunk. The guys a few seconds later decide to head out and when they walked past us one of them shoved Sara. Josh immediately ran outside after him and I followed. They started getting in each others faces and eventually one of the guys was on top of Josh. I ran over to get him off my friend and unfortunately I was also under the influence so Captain Clutch wasn’t there to remind me that his friend was behind me and he ended took some nice sucker punches to the back of my head. Next thing I know cops have us in handcuffs. When I say us I mean myself and Josh, the other guys just ran off when the cops arrived. For the next week or so I just didn’t feel like myself. I’ve had a concussion before in high school from wrestling and to me it just felt like my mind was a little cloudy. It wasn’t as big of a deal when I first got one because 1. It wasn’t intentional from the person I was wrestling and 2. I wasn’t doing gaming for a living. It can get to your head when you start to think you are reacting slower and playing worse. Things are 100% fine now but at the time I didn’t feel like I was playing Halo to the level I was capable of due to not feeling right.

There is no good time for a couple to break up and Nicki and I officially parted ways shortly after New Years. Following that I come to learn in early January that a friend 2 years younger than me is in an induced coma from being jumped outside a bar downtown. He ended up passing away in the following weeks. I’m not going to get deep into this but being there for someone who is coping with a death is one of the best and only things you can do. It lets them know the person who passed away was loved and that whoever is coping isn’t alone. I mentioned this whole ordeal to a few people and I was amazed to see the support I received. I told Gilbert and Red Bull about a fundraiser that was being held in my friends honor and they both asked what they could do. Gil ended up sending me an autographed jersey to auction off and a couple local Red Bull representatives made an appearance to show their support.

During this whole ordeal with my friend I decide in mid January my brother and Dad invite me up to watch some tennis. Best part? It’s right on a Casino/Resort only a couple hours north and I love to gamble. I decide to bring 1,600 with me to gamble with (I just got a nice payday from Gil) and needless to say lost a good amount of money. But to top it off, within the last 15 minutes of my drive home I lost control of my car on the highway and nearly hit a semi. I was lucky enough to straighten out the car and ended up going off into the center where there were just a few small trees. While I was sitting in my car shaking waiting for my Dad to meet me and help a car pulled over to check on me. It was a father and his daughter headed back from a volleyball game and figured it would be a good idea to stop and make sure whoever was in the car was fine. Even though I’m fairly grown up, them pulling over, letting me sit in the car with them and talk for 10 minutes while I waited for my Dad made a huge huge difference. They had no idea who I was yet still just helped. Although I will say that the following day the girl talked to me on facebook saying her brother is a huge fan, they will for sure be getting taken care with the Kiaeneto hookup. In the end I still haven’t gotten my car completely fixed yet but mechanical and body work is estimated at over 1,000. Oh and just recently I just found out one of my XBL accounts was hacked and had over 1,000 charged to it.

Out of each bad thing I’ve had happen, I’ve been able to find good things. There are amazing people out there that are willing to help while asking nothing in return. I’m coming to terms with being single and am finally being able to put all my focus back into gaming. I’m more than just a gamer to my sponsors, they helped me in ways I didn’t expect or ask and it makes it even more special being able to represent them. I’ve also found out that I have many more supporters out there than I realized. After my car accident I just sat in bed without any motivation to get up. But I decided to get online, check myspace, etc. I never really read any of my messages on there but for whatever reason I decided to check a few and they were the opposite of what I thought they’d be. Without people even knowing what I’ve been going through recently there were tons of messages that just made my day. I usually don’t read messages not to ignore people, I had just assumed that all of the messages were for friend requests and it’s impossible to play a game or respond to all the people that send them. So it’s not like I look over the messages you guys send and just forget about it, in fact when I rarely do check a message I reply. It’s hard when I have around 7,000 unread messages since I only read them if I have the intention to reply back.

Last thing I want to share is one of the best pieces of advice for balancing relationships and time I have ever heard was from a friend 2 weeks ago. Which is months later than I wish I heard it. There are 3 things in life. 1. Family/Friends 2. Significant other 3. Career. It is near impossible to be fully happy with where you are in all 3 of those categories. You’re always going to be faced with choices to decide between them. Where I made my biggest mistake was spreading myself too thin. I was just putting in barely enough time to make things work in everything except my career. This is something I still do today and do not regret. That’s how important I’ve treated my career. After gaming when it came down to my friends, family, and Nicki I didn’t spend my time or treat them the way I would have if I thought about it more clearly. Every free moment I had outside of gaming I was spending my time trying to catch up with friends/family since it started to turn into a monthly thing instead of focusing on the person that was right in front of me. Don’t be blind and assume that someone will always understand your situation or know how you feel about them. Regardless of how Nicki and I could have turned out up isn’t the point. The point is to find out what is important in your life and treat it in a way that you can look back and not regret it.

Also, didn’t want to forget this: if you’re from Michigan and want to play Halo with me this weekend go to www.gamersoutreach.org. They’re holding a 2v2 tournament to raise money for Autism research, 1st-1,000 2nd -500. Best part about it? I’m not even going to be competing; I’m just going to be on free play all day Saturday March 1st catching games with anyone. The venue is supposed to be open for 24 hours so if you come out to the event, I promise you’ll get to play a game with me. It costs 50 bucks to play in the tournament but even if you don’t play in the tournament it’s free to get in and you get to game with me. So if you’re from Michigan and complain that you don’t get to play with me come to this event!

Lately I’ve been disappointed in some of the current settings and weapon sets that MLG has in place. This is a huge deal to me personally not just for the fact that I want to play the most fair and balanced game types but also for the fun factor, strategy, and depth of the game. First off, I haven’t played around that much forge or been extremely active in the discussion with the MLG guys creating the game types so I don’t have a right to bitch. Just wanted to give my two cents on what I think can improve the balance, competitive scene, and make it more enjoyable…. When I’m playing Halo 3 in a Kiaeneto shirt, I just don’t know how to explain it but my shots always register and it ends up being 10 times more fun, ok enough with the joking or what I call lowking. (Triggers Down Lowkin, aka Lowk the joke. Just to clear any future misconceptions and/or false rumors spreading. Lowkin doesn’t have the nickname because he’s hilarious, far from it.) Now that I just got completely off subject let me tell you how I feel about the removal of weapons and a little bit of how I feel what makes Halo the competitive title it is.

Sword

I don’t see the reason to removing this weapon in Halo 3. I would have argued in Halo 2 had there not been unforeseen glitches like BXB and BXR to take away from it being overpowered that it might have been too dominating and possibly taken out. But look at some of the changes to the sword, in no significant order.
1. The lunge range has been decreased.
2. Energy drains with each use.
3/4 Ability to add more Swords. Ability to place the Sword anywhere. With forge, we now can add more than one so even if it is considered powerful you can not only move the sword to the weaker side of the map to lessen a disadvantage. You also can have more than one on the map if it balances out. For example, imagine playing Lockout TS in Halo 2 where one team spawns at BR while the other team spawns at bottom blue. Instead of one team shooting over sniper, dropping down to grab sword, and having a full setup. Things could possibly be evened out a little more with small changes. Also please don’t post about the millions of possibilities that could go wrong or right with this, just showing an example that there are more options.

I’m not advocating that MLG turns into an all swords game, has every weapon included, or has to have one or more of a certain weapon on every map but I just think the weapon set and game types at the moment can definitely be improved. I’ll be the first to say that I want to have the game types as skilled as possible but I just don’t see any reason for removing sword over something like the Mauler. Both the Mauler and the Sword arguable take about the same skill to use. But, I’ll take a Mauler over Sword every time because it’s more powerful in my opinion. The most logical reason I can see for taking out the Sword is the inconsistency with it at times. But, I don’t see the Sword being overpowered which I feel is more important, especially with how long it takes to switch weapons and the reduced lunge. But, I just feel that it is way too early in the game to be making a decision to remove it like that. Excluding so many weapons without great reasoning could end up hurting the game overall. Some people argue that weapons like the Sword, Mauler, and Rockets take less skill aiming wise compared to a Battle Rifle or Carbine. If we’re talking about straight up aiming skill, I’d totally agree there but if MLG was going to use the game with the most skill for aiming a gun you’d run into an impossible argument over hundreds of video games. I’ll lightly touch on this issue before I’m done blogging for tonight.

Halo is a legendary game. There are so many factors that go into making this a great competitive title. First reason why I feel in love with this trilogy and the competitive scene is that shooting skill tends to be what sets many players above and beyond. Can’t really be explained but some people just flat out have better shots than other people no matter how much time is put into the game. I’ll never snipe as good as the OGRES or StrongSide. *Mainly because I’m not allowed to pick it up the sniper or I’ll get kicked off the team.* But it’s not just the shooting skill, although I do think it is the most important factor, there are so many others that add right up to it. Halo is a much much deeper competitive game that most people realize. Decision making can be just as important as shooting skill. Halo was either the first or at least now it is the most popular game that I know of that had self recharging shield/health that makes it a very aggressive game. Having the recharging shield/health makes the person with the upper hand have to make hard decisions with time against them. Making choices in what seems like infinite situations like when to charge at a weak person or stay back to not lose your position. In Halo, under most circumstances I wouldn’t charge a weak person and risk giving up a good position if they didn’t regenerate their health. I would be able to camp all day to wait for a teammate or wait until he left his hiding spot to finish him.

Even decisions like what weapons to use can be somewhat important. Would I take Sniper/Mauler or Sniper/BR? Trick question, I’m not allowed to pick up sniper. But, choices like this every battle are what make Halo such an incredible game along with shooting skill, strategy, power-up control, power weapon control and probably more that I’m forgetting (remind me to do a full blog about this later so I don’t forget cause I could go on forever). Feel free to leave comments even if you disagree, just make sure to back it up. For example; “STRONGSIDE SUCKS” isn’t a valid argument. If you would have said “StrongSide sucks because he thinks it’s funny to mess with Walsh at lans by putting marshmallows in his shoes, playing Rick Astin over 100 times, and biting during what was supposed to be a legit wrestling match” I would agree and understand where you're coming from because I don't see the humor in having marshmallows in my Gil Zero's either.

Thanks for reading and I plan on writing more things in the near future about what I feel could improve Halo 3. Right now I plan on finishing up with equipment, 110 damage, brute shot, 1,000 page paper on competitive gaming balance, and the laser. I’ll probably think of more but help me out and suggest any other things I’m missing.

After all the great responses from my last blog I decided to post up another! This last week I had the opportunity to go down Red Bull Flugtag in Austin, TX with my girlfriend. Nicki always hates the reminders about the incident lets get past it and from now on call her by her real name Nicki Harriman…. although she basically is the OJ Simpson of the electronic world; if the wrist strap doesn’t fit! You must acquit! Ok but seriously, that’s the last time. For those of you who don’t watch much TV or skip commercials with Tivo like I do, Flugtag is just a regular old fashioned event put on by Red Bull where 5 men or hot chicks build a vehicle that goes off of a 22’ ramp into a lake and try to glide as far as possible (I just want to point out that I’m a very politically correct person and that’s why I didn’t just say 5 men, you sexists out there make me sick). Basically Flugtag is nothing out of the ordinary…

So, OJ Harriman and I got to Austin mid afternoon on the day before the event, Friday with the night to do whatever we wanted. If you’ve never been to Austin and you’re over 21 or have a fake id that says you’re over 21 it’s one of the most unique bar scenes around. On the weekend they close off a couple of the main roads so all the drunks don’t get hit because they just walk in the road anyways! All 3 times I’ve gone to the bars in Austin I randomly run into someone cool. The first time I met some Roller Derby girls who were on a local team in Texas. The following year I walked past Mr. Peepers himself, Chris Kattan, but didn’t say anything because I seriously drew a blank about his name and was pretty sure the conversation wouldn’t go well if it started off with me just thinking of Mr. Peepers the whole time. What would I have said? “You’re nothing like the role you play on SNL! I didn’t expect that one bit!” This year topped the past years combined and since it was a celebrity on wheels!

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Mark Zupan, never heard of him? Now you will.

I consider myself to have great taste in movies and will literally watch some of my favorite movies a couple times in a row because I enjoy them so much. Well this night I got to meet the star from one of my favorite movies. At the bar Casino el Camino I got to meet Mark Zupan, the star from Murderball; which is a documentary that everyone should see. This documentary is about quadriplegic rugby players and an insight on their world. This is not a movie that’s going to make you feel bad or guilty about what happened to someone and how they live their life now. What I got out of the movie is that no matter what the hell happens to you in life, you can learn to deal with it, not dwell on it. Mark Zupan’s story is a perfect example (I regrettably haven’t read his book yet, but I just picked it up and am going to read it after I’m done watching the 2nd season DVD of Entourage). Mark was a straight up asshole prior to the accident and to an extent hasn’t changed; I was intimidated to even say hi to him in the bar after watching the movie. Mark wasn’t born in a wheelchair, in a way he was put in there by his friend. One night at the bar Mark was so drunk that he just crawled in the back of his friend’s pickup truck and passed out. His friend at the end of the night had a few too many drinks and made a life changing decision to drive home. He ended up crashing his pickup truck which resulted in Mark, who he didn’t know was in the back, to be thrown out of the vehicle. Mark first off was lucky enough to even be alive, but he wasn’t lucky enough to ever be able to walk again.

Everyone goes through bad times in their lives but the most important part is not what happened, it’s how you deal with it. Mark went through a life changing experience and rather than regretting what happened in the past and dwelling upon it. He discovered that he could take his competitiveness to quad rugby. He got over the fact that he was never going to be able to walk again and has lived his life in a way he never would have imagined since being told he was going to be in a wheelchair. One of the things I find in common with Mark is that we both love proving people wrong. He’s the kind of guy that wants to go out and show that he can do as much or more than an able bodied person, for example in an interview on eye weekly’s website ‘"My body has endured more than a lot of able bodies," he says. "Going to the gym is one of the funnier things for me because people just stare. I'll pick up 80-lb. dumbbells and people are like, 'The kid's gonna kill himself.' I'll do 12 reps and they just sit there with their mouths open. You can see them thinking, 'Oh my god, he's stronger than me and he's in a chair.' That's gratifying for me -- now you know I'm the same as you."’ After being in a life threatening accident and still having the self motivation to get out there and prove himself. I was super excited to get the chance to meet and talk to Mark and it was even cooler that I found out he was going to be competing in the Red Bull event the following day so I’d get to see him again. Mark is an inspiration to me and I recommend that everyone see his movie after watching my inspiring Shadowrun VOD. It’s is an example of my the mindset I got from Mark, because there were a few times when I would die but instead of pouting and thinking my life was over I’d…… Ok I’m taking this joke too far already, but seriously go out and watch Murderball. Also, first person that gives me a DVD of Murderball in Orlando will get a 50$ Kiaeneto gift certificate (my friends suck and never return the movies I let them borrow, dead serious).

On to the Flugtag event! Saturday morning myself and Nicki, successful Lisa Nowak, decided to check out the town a bit before we went over to the event which started at 5pm since it was so damn hot. One thing I realized was that as much as I hate the cold in Michigan during the winter, I think I hate having the weather being 100 degrees and having to be outside. To say it was warm would be like saying the OGRES are ok at 2v2. I was lucky enough to be in the VIP area at the event which had lots of shade and drinks; I don’t know how people survived out in the park! To my surprise was that flugtag is a real German word that means “flying day”. I don’t know if this event was held on opposite day or something but flying was not the first word that came to my mind (if someone would look up September 25th on the calendar to double check if it really was National Opposite Day for me so I don’t look stupid I’d appreciate it). At Flugtag the teams are scored by; distance, craft creativity, pre-flight (or I liked to call pre-fall) performance, and costumes.


In Team Karl Sucks’ case, you got more points for taking your costumes off.

With an opinionated scoring system like this, Red Bull obviously needed some judges. Here’s a few of the judges I got to meet…

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Funny thing about Paul Wall being there was the fact that we were wearing THE EXACT SAME GRILL! What are the chances?! Anyways we played paper rock scissors and he won so I took mine off.

After meeting Paul Wall I immediately sent a few of my friends a text message to brag that said “The ice man say’s what’s up!” I assumed my friends would get the fun joke but of course, I was wrong. An old math teacher of mine, Mrs. Ferguson, once told me “Never assume, because when you assume it makes an ‘ass’ of ‘u’ and ‘me’”. First off, that’s one of the coolest quotes I ever heard in a classroom and secondly I realized how much I hate my friends sometimes. Because of that one message I sent to five of my friends, the rest of the night I was getting calls and text messages asking “What the hell is Val Kilmer doing there?” or “Man, isn’t Kilmer a bit too old to be there?”. I hate my friends. Still to this day I’ve had to clear this up with some friend I haven’t seen in a while who ask me what it was like meeting Val Kilmer. Then like some crack head try to make sense and explain to them that it wasn’t Val Kilmer and we somehow had a miscommunication that lead to Paul Wall being mistaken as Val Kilmer. This honestly has to be a first in history that not only were Paul Wall and Val Kilmer in the same sentence, but they were mistaken for each other. http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22paul+wall+and+val+kilmer%22

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Olympic swimmer Amanda Beard, another Red Bull sponsored athlete. She was recently on the cover of Playboy and looked at me like I was crazy when I asked if she saw me on the cover of ESports….

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I think this was the only person I looked more dressed up than with my Mickey Mouse shirt

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Gears of War creator, CliffyB!

I was lucky enough to go out all Saturday night with CliffyB, his buddy Vegas, his girlfriend Chantal, Ryan Fitzpatrick from Red Bull, and Nicki. People like CliffyB are the reason that we end up with such amazing games to play. He’s one of the only game creators that I’ve ever met and understands the difference between a game that sits on the shelf for a few months and a game that lasts for years. It was just really cool being able to explain to him that I play games like the ones that he develops and make a living out of it. If you ever get a chance to stop by a Red Bull event in your city, GO TO IT! It’s a great time and if it’s not during an MLG event I’ll probably beg them to fly me out there to hang out too!

Having read so many blogs and articles dissing Chicago I was forced to write about this great friend of mine. To understand why I love this absolutely amazing incredible city so much, you have to take a look back on my track record in this town.

MLG Chicago 04- My very first 4v4 tournament win. My team was Team FFA- KillerN, Zyos, Gintron and myself were the first team since TDT to beat StK- OGRES, Saiyan (was Clockwork up until this event), and Strangpurple. I also placed 3rd/4th in the ffa and I also realized it was the birthplace of Captain Clutch with a flag return to win the tournament.

[IMG]http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o122/yhslaw/FFA.jpg[/IMG] Oh how times have changed

MLG Chicago 05- This epic tale is currently being made into a movie titled “Dumbass OGRES; Double Trouble!” I’m pretty sure the script got picked up by Dreamworks and casting is going to have the Olson twins as Tom and Dan, while they have me played by Christian Bale.


On to the story of a lifetime… Before this tournament myself and Saiyan (played by Fabio, protagonist’s good friend) had lost the 2v2 WCG USA Finals to the OGRES (they reminded me constantly leading up to this event) which was a tournament out in Singapore where they won $20,000 in a worldwide Halo 2 event. 2nd place at WCG world tournament was $10,000 but unfortunately only 1 team from each country was allowed to participate so in a way it was either 20 grand or nothing. So while the OGRES were out in Singapore I heard about a Battlefield 2 tournament for Xbox through GameStop where 1st place was a limited edition fully loaded Dodge Charger SRT8, retail value was just over $43,000. The qualifier for this was the same weekend that the OGRES were in Singapore so Saiyan and I decided that we’d give the tournament a shot since our Halo team wouldn’t be practicing anyways and we made an agreement that if either of us wins the car, we’ll split it 50/50. After a few weeks of practice we both advanced through our qualifiers while the twins won 20,000 on the other side of the world.

Once again, let me stress how much crap the twins gave me for losing this event to them because it makes this story that much better. So initially our Battlefield tournament was supposed to finish in one day, but things ran late and they told us the tournament would be a couple weeks later which I started freaking out about because our MLG event was the same weekend as the final round of the Battlefield event. Needless to say they weren’t going to schedule the event around a couple people but what they did do is let us play the final round at a local GameStop in Chicago. Fast forwarding 2 weeks to the event myself and Saiyan went to bed early Friday night so we could go early Saturday morning 45 minutes away to designated GameStop. To win this event you had to have the most points at the end of 15 minutes and there were multiple ways to get points.
1. Killing a person, 1 point.
2. Killing a vehicle, 2-3 points depending on the vehicle.
3. Capturing a stationary flag (takes about 10 seconds to convert and 10 to capture unless another person helps), 3 for capturing it, 2 for converting an enemy flag to neutral, 1 or 2 points for assisting a flag capture.
4. Killing an enemy or vehicle near an allied/neutral flag, 2 points.

With a point system like this, all the action was near the flags since you could get 5 points or so for fully converting an enemy flag plus any kills you got. Basically everyone in the tournament played as an Assault or Special Ops class which has a powerful mid/close range rifle good for charging a flag with. I ended up playing as a sniper which is an automatic 1 shot kill so I could just body shot people. Headshots are overrated, I prefer to bod (say it like body without the ‘e’ sound at the end). This is another thing that I get mocked about constantly from the twins about being one of the worst snipers since I SUCK at hitting the head; well Battlefield was created with people like Walshy in mind. Basically my strategy playing as a sniper was to get a mid distance away from a neutral flag or enemy flag and wait until I killed two enemies then capture it. Once that happened I would kill both, run over and get the capture which would amount to 9 points assuming I get the capture. This strategy had been worked in my qualifier so I just kept doing it.

At the beginning of the final round I had a rough start. I think it was due to me being antsy and charging the flags which resulted in instant death for a sniper. I was down by more than 15 points which is a HUGE margin considering the person in first had only 40 some points with only 5 minutes left. The end of the game I realized I had to pull off my strategy almost 4 times with the rate that the leader was scoring points. I ended up playing amazing at the end and to top it off was getting extremely lucky which resulted in me winning by over 10 points at the very end. This is one of the few times that I have ever gone absolute nuts after winning a gaming event, I screamed at the top of my lungs, called all my friends and family right away. I had just won a $43,000 car at a game that I didn’t play exclusively. The feeling lasted the whole 45 minute drive back to the MLG event where I would get to tell the twins in person that because they went to Singapore instead of me, I would have never done the Battlefield tournament. Instead of possibly winning a mere twenty grand I had just won a 43,000 dollar Dodge Charger. Saiyan’s Dad ended up buying my half of the car while Saiyan gave his half for free to his Dad (There is such thing as too nice, tone it down a bit dude). It wasn’t just the fact that I won 23,000 more than the guys who got what they deserved. I had won an amazing car which was better than the car OGRE 2 won earlier in the year by beating me 1v1 in the WB Finals at a VGL tournament. In the end I won 23,000 more than the twins, won a better car than OGRE 2. I killed 2 OGRES with one stone (I was going to say with one nade but one gaming innuendo on an old saying is a little overboard). That alone should make the weekend a lifetime memory, but it gets better…

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Trying to hold in my laughter while I tell Dan what just happened.

After we returned to the MLG event from the drive the Pro FFA was starting which I was a part of. I didn’t get as much warm-up since I had to sign the papers for the new car. But once again, Chicago is my homeboy and thought that I should place 4th in the FFA. I’m a humble guy and am not going to point out that I placed higher than both Tom and Dan in the FFA, but I will say that I heard from somebody that they 100% for sure placed lower than me. Oh yea, we ended up winning the 4v4 event too.


[IMG]http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o122/yhslaw/charger.jpg[/IMG] For those who skipped all the reading, basically I won a 43,000 car and the OGRES were silenced.

Chicago 06- Leading up to this event Chicago and I were having some fights like all good friends do at some point in their lives. Basically Chicago found out we weren’t going to be able to hang out as much as we usually do at the events since some of my friends and my Girlfriend, the TV murderer, were coming. I ended up placing 12th in the FFA and we squeezed out a 4v4 1st place with me playing horribly.

One thing I won’t forget that came out of this event was our first sales of Kiaeneto shirts. Technically you’re not allowed to sell merchandise at MLG events but we gave it a try anyways and sold or in my words “gave out for free whenever a security guard asked.” This was the first time I was able to witness the demand for Kiaeneto and seeing all the people buy it made me extremely proud of all the work myself and Mikey Sabo had put into the company. We sold over 2,000 dollars worth of stuff in 5 hours before we were nicely asked to stop or in my words “not so nicely asked to stop.” To top it off, we were selling a sort of “off-brand” material at the event since we didn’t have our actual Kiaeneto shirts yet. Many people don’t know that we actually have custom made t-shirts for Kiaeneto only so it was a huge surprise when we got all the good responses from people about those shirts and designs. After that we just knew we’d blow everyone away with the final product in November. We went from being near broke starting the company up to now.
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Mikey Sabo came by to show how fortunate we've been with all the support from the community
*I got this pic sent to me on AIM, not sure who took it but I can take it down if you want*

Chicago 07- Coming into this event I felt like I had a lot riding on my shoulders. Not only did we lose Dallas right before this, but OGRE 2 and I were competing in the Shadowrun event, which many people thought was a horrible idea. In hindsight it was a really cocky move. The Shadowrun event was only 2,000 for first, it was a little draining waking up earlier on Saturday than I was used to, and I don’t know what kind of mood it would have put us in had we lost. Tom and I love playing the game for fun and really wanted to prove to everyone that gaming talent transfers from game to game, it’s not just Halo. So we went into the event with little team practice and I can say with confidence that OGRE 2 played less than any member of the top 4 teams. Our team didn’t have much practice compared to others out there but we were very confident. If you haven’t played Shadowrun before the whole game is about strategy and adapting. I’m not saying that shooting skill isn’t important. But, we were able to go into games with teams that had amazing strategies and we’d sometimes lose the first few rounds then just counter what they did. One of the things that personally helped me the most was playing against XhinBuu Z in the online tournament where the first match he just strangled me to death EVERY SINGLE TIME. But, even in that match I just started to counter his strangle by making him throw it and just running away so he’d have less essence. After we lost the online tournament to Type-Z I started practicing what he did to me and I felt like I was unstoppable 1v1 when I added that to my build. We learned tons of new strategies at this event and you can expect us to do a few new things in Orlando ;). All in all I was just super excited to compete in the event and prove that even if I can't put all my focus in the game, I can still play at the top level.

FINALLY…. on to the Halo event. In the LANs leading up to this, I felt like we made some great changes to our strategy. I trust my teammates knowledge of the game so much and OGRE 1 helped me improve my Lockout Ball aka Hometown game. I’m a person who never really bases a person’s skill purely off of stats. But when I'm going extremely negative 90% of the time in a gametype, that isn't coincidence. Mainly in Hometown there were many situations that I didn’t know what to do. Many times I would try to charge over by myself and break BR setup, or I would drop under glass waaaay too much to try and stop ball time. Dan showed me that I was giving up way too much position to try to help my teammates or stop ball time and ever since I’ve been so much more confident at Hometown.

Besides individual improvements we decided to pick apart one game type each day and talk about what we needed to change on it. On objective games like CTF we just weren’t protecting our flag runner good enough and changed up a couple positions for when we get the flag out. Our biggest problem was fighting the wrong people when we had the flag on our half of the map. We would spawn kill 3 guys at their base rather than focusing on the person closest to our flag carrier and they would get a return because of it. So we started rotating back with our flag guy much more than we had before, almost to the point that everyone would basically be back at our base so that if one of us died, the rest would be able to either get the grab or make sure they didn’t get the return. With this, we were finally winning objective games while being even in kills or getting out-slayed. It definitely showed in our Top 16 match vs Active Rush where we got outslayed on Midship Ball yet won by over 2 minutes. Just a few small changes to our objective style of play ended up doing wonders to our game. All in all Chicago was a defining tournamet for us this season, we faced a loss in Dallas and proved that we can bounce back from it compared to last season where we lost Orlando and just couldn't beat the new Carbon lineup.

[IMG]http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o122/yhslaw/chiskyline.jpg[/IMG]
The Windy City? More like The Walshy City!

I'm sick of everyone hating on my homeboy Chicago. Super duper blog will be up tomorrow.

Everyone, if you'd like to have Kiaeneto carried at your local lan center, send an email with the lan center's name and phone number. If your lan center starts carrying Kiaeneto gear, you will recieve a 100$ gift certificate to our website. (If more than one person sends information about the same lan center, the first email recieved will get the gift certificate.)

Send all email to Kate@kiaeneto.com

Thanks!