apo5tol: My name is Alexander Altshuller, or Alex overseas. But usually no one calls for me, I go wherever and whenever I need to. (Play on words in original Russian – red.)

I travel to Russia pretty often, 3-4 times a year, so I’m already used to the many-hour flights. I even get recognized by stewardess’ on Moscow – New York flight. I fly only when necessary and usually can’t stand airplanes. It’s a complete waste of time. Can’t wait until they introduce beds on transatlantic flights =)

Are you in Russia at a tournament for the first time? How well organized does ASUS Spring 2006 seem to you? To which tournaments would you compare it?

[q]Yes, atleast for Q4 it is my first tourney in Russia. In principal I did imagine what ASUS Open might be like and did know who I can expect to see here, so no surprise there. Organization was great. In fact this center (building - red) is very well geared towards holding big cybersport tournaments: spacious accommodations; enough space behind computers. I might of cource have prefured to play on CRT monitors, but TFTs also work out fine. Overall I can compare this with CPL, practically the only tourney of this scale. I like it here best, everyone is speaking Russian :)

Usually at home, in Philadelphia, I practice with Socrates, Clamp, Destruct and the likes over internet. However, Internet is really not IT. Everything is different on lan, strategy, aiming… In Russia my family lives in Nizhnii Novgorod, so there isn’t anybody to practice with. So one week before the tourney I lived and trained with Cooller. I also played with Jibo, Hamzik. But unfortunately I couldn’t prepare decently. Hopefully I will play much better for ESWC Russia.

The only match worth mentioning was the game against LeXeR, which I unfortunately lost 2-1. Coincidently all three games were on Galang. Hard to say why I lost, probably didn’t have enough experience. The rest of the games went easy, will see what happens next.

In USA everyone plays “from defense”. The scores on phrantic are often 5-3 or 7-2. Here, there is completely different play style. Everyone is running at you head on with any weapon. So I had to adapt. Also in US everyone is a rail whore, some people rail you 3-4 times in a row, here it is less common. And this doesn’t mean that in Russia people are worse rail aimers, the gameplay is simply more balanced. In fact, I prefure Russian style

Cooller. Period.

Thank you! I hope to see you again at future tourneys :)