You live in a lithuanian city Šiauliai . Do you like it there? Is it an interesting place?

Yes, I live in Lithuania, a 3rd word country :)
My city isn't big, the population is approximately 200.000. We have like 5 nice, big clubs, where I usually spend weekends, there's also a couple of decent pubs. I was born here, that's why I like this city, but I'd really like to live in Vilnius, or even better in some european city!


You were nominated to the Player of the year award by eSports.lt. Do you think that you could win if QuakeLive would be more popular on Lithuania? (the award was given to dARKIe, a CS player)

Yeah, I was nominated, but Lithuania, like most of european countires, is focused on Counter-Strike. They don't write about me too often, we all know what they're interesed in :) Yet, I have a lot of fans! They never forget about me, they watch live streams etc. I'm really happy about it. I don't really care about eSports.lt awards.


How do you feel few days before the european Intel Extreme Masters finals?

I study at the university from the 4th to the 21st of January, for 12 hours 6 days a week. Apart from that, I have small problems at work so I don't have much time for training. When I find the time, I'm trying to play a few games against Spart1e and it seems that I'm in shape. I don't feel any pression before the tourney because I do not aim for top positions. I'm worried about the LCD monitors we'll be playing on there, I have to admit, I don't know how to play on low refresh rates. Getting there might also be troublesome, I don't like to travel on my own.


How do you prepare for the finals? Do you have a special training program?

I don't take the training too serious, it's even hard to call it a training in my case. The best I can do is to play against the top players, recently, as I already mentioned, I'm playing mostly with Spart1e, but the more I play, the worse my aim is and I stop to try, and start to base my aim on reflex, which results in missing a lot :D I could train harder, I know what should I do to make it more efficient, but for the time being, I can't practise like that.


Do you think you could reach the podium?

No, I don't think so. If playing on the PC's there won't be a problem and I won't be tired because of the trip, I might pass the group stage. Of course, I can steal a map from the best player of the tourney, but since it'll be BO3 I don't think I could win more than that. At the moment my skill is too low and I haven't put enough work into QuakeLive.


Latelly, you had almost over 9000 2nd places in online one day tournaments such as Zotac or G-Data. Was there always this one player that was better than you? Maybe it's some kind of a curse, or maybe the pression of playing in the final is still too big and you can't play "your game"?

Too be more precise, I've finished second about 10 times in the last 3-4 months :D My biggest problem is the fact that playing non-stop makes me tired fast. I don't like to sit in front of the PC for 3-4 hours without a break. I don't feel any pression when playing versus top players, well, maybe except the times when the frag difference is really slim or when the match goes into overtime, my hand shakes slightly and my heart beats faster only in those kind of situations :) Then the problem are my abilities, I'm not a top world-class player after all.


You represent your country in the QuakeLive TDM Nations Cup 2010. Lithuania was placed in a group C along with France, Austria, Germany, Serbia and Norway. Do you think you have a chance to advance? Which country seems to be the favourite, and against which countries do you have a chance to win?

We're attending this tourney only for the QL TDM community and for fun. We don't have any chance to advance, we're awfully weak and I as I said, we're playing just for the competition. The favourites of our group are the French and Germans. The best we can do is to win a single map, that's all we can do.

You're playing in Betsson Voodoo Gaming for almost 5 months. The QuakeLive division was shrank to merely two players: you and tox1c. Do you like each other with Robert? Do you think the team should have more players? If so, do you have any players on mind that could aid the squad?

It's better to have a team with 2 players than with 22 :) tox1c is a great person, additionally he's from Poland, and I like poles. We don't talk to much, but our relations are OK :) At the moment there aren't many good, free players. The only one that comes to my mind is Reaper from Ukraine.

Thanks for the short talk. Good luck in IEM Finals!

No problem, I'd also like to thank you. I wish good luck to all other participants!


Translated from polish. Original interview can be found here
http://voodoo.at.desk.pl/index.php?mod=articl...amp;id=89#