{"id":2438,"date":"2014-02-10T18:57:41","date_gmt":"2014-02-11T02:57:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.cyberpowerpc.com\/?p=2438"},"modified":"2024-01-24T16:36:52","modified_gmt":"2024-01-25T00:36:52","slug":"qxc-speaks-iem-cologne-and-training","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cyberpowergaming.com\/qxc-speaks-iem-cologne-and-training\/","title":{"rendered":"qxc Speaks: IEM Cologne and Training"},"content":{"rendered":"

Post written by\u00a0Kevin “qxc” Riley of compLexity Gaming<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

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IEM Cologne is fast approaching and will be my first major international\u00a0tournament of 2014. In 2013 I attended a multitude of events including\u00a0multiple IEM’s and a homestory cup, but did not place particularly well.\u00a0While showing good games in qualifiers I wasn’t able to stand against the\u00a0Koreans that I \u00a0inevitably faced in group stage, rarely taking more than a\u00a0single game through the entire event.<\/p>\n

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I remember IEM New York as perhaps the most devastated I’ve ever felt at a\u00a0live event. The results of a series don’t always tell the whole story.\u00a0Some games are particularly close. Some games you take a risk and it gets\u00a0punished. For example, it’s hard to feel too bad about losing to a\u00a06 pool if you cc first. Perhaps you should be less predictable or have\u00a0studied your opponents tendencies more, but once the initial decision is\u00a0made there isn’t so much in game to be done. In New York, I didn’t feel like\u00a0I had taken any unnecessary risks. Nothing I did was ‘punished’\u00a0because it was supposed to be a trick or I was hiding some tech or timing. I\u00a0got simply destroyed by both opponents and in reflection there wasn’t ever a\u00a0point where I felt like the games were in my hands. I put so much time into\u00a0preparation, traveled to the event and felt like I had almost nothing to\u00a0show for it.<\/p>\n

Going backwards in time, I had attended IEM Shanghai a month or two before\u00a0that where I had performed about as well against a similarly skilled group.<\/p>\n

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The travel hit me pretty hard at this event as I didn’t deal with jet lag as\u00a0well as I wanted to. After my losses I always save my replays for later\u00a0analysis and this was no different. Returning to my hotel room at night I\u00a0spent time going over each game in detail and figuring out where to improve\u00a0and what to do better. As you may have seen, I am a very passionate person.\u00a0When I lose, I feel it at my core and when I win I feel elevated. After\u00a0tournaments and matches, I never take too long to rebound and become\u00a0absorbed once again this game that I enjoy so much.<\/p>\n

I’ve learned a lot from my experiences at these events and constantly try to\u00a0use it to make myself stronger.<\/p>\n

All of that is behind me now and has helped provide a much greater\u00a0appreciation of what it means and takes to be a progamer. I have altered my\u00a0approach in significant ways by putting a greater emphasis on making sure\u00a0I’m using my time as effectively as possible. That means more time spent\u00a0practicing and taking care of myself. Playing for several hours in a row is\u00a0taxing on the body and without adequate rest practice is wasted. I have both\u00a0increased the amount of hours I practice as well as the amount of hours I\u00a0rest recently and have already seen significant improvements in performance\u00a0and consistency.<\/p>\n

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In the past, I experimented with a lot of different schedules and had\u00a0tentatively concluded for a long time that I had been practicing too much\u00a0due to my consistently high stress levels and poor sleep. Recently, I\u00a0realized that some of the activities I thought were relaxing\/recovery were\u00a0actually at best, maintaining my state of stress and at worst, increasing\u00a0it. I go into the new year with a new mindset, attitude and regiment. In\u00a0just the last few weeks I’ve been consistently performing better than I have\u00a0in the past and improving consistently, which is even more important than\u00a0the skill at which I’m currently playing.<\/p>\n

In the beginning of my whole journey as a progamer I found myself a top tier\u00a0player while also a student. Somewhere along the way, I lost my footing and\u00a0have been more or less slipping since then. I am hopeful that this is the\u00a0beginning of reclaiming that dominance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Post written by\u00a0Kevin “qxc” Riley of compLexity Gaming. IEM Cologne is fast approaching and will be my first major international\u00a0tournament of 2014. In 2013 I attended a multitude of events including\u00a0multiple IEM’s and a homestory cup, but did not place particularly well.\u00a0While showing good games in qualifiers I wasn’t able to stand against the\u00a0Koreans that… Read More »qxc Speaks: IEM Cologne and Training<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":2440,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2724],"tags":[560,561,1402,1403,78,1971,1972],"class_list":["post-2438","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-complexity","tag-complexity-gaming","tag-iem","tag-iem-cologne","tag-qxc","tag-starcraft-3","tag-starcraft-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cyberpowergaming.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2438","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cyberpowergaming.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cyberpowergaming.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cyberpowergaming.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cyberpowergaming.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2438"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.cyberpowergaming.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2438\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15319,"href":"https:\/\/www.cyberpowergaming.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2438\/revisions\/15319"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cyberpowergaming.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2440"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cyberpowergaming.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2438"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cyberpowergaming.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2438"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cyberpowergaming.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2438"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}