One of the biggest events in Poland ended recently, and I think it's the right time to post a short summary of what we saw in Łódź, Poland from the 2nd to 4th of October this year. I'd like to start this column with deepest apologies to all of you who wanted to follow Pan-European Tournament and CyberArena 36i6 here on myMYM.com. Unfortunately, the website and problems with the internet connection didn't allow us to make everything as we wanted to.

Cybersport, the organiser of CyberArena 36i6 and PET moved the tournament from Warsaw, Poland to Łódź. Nobody was expecting this to happen, as for many years the capital of Poland was also the capital of e-sport in our country - holding tournaments like KODE5 and WCG qualifications. There is also Poznań, where we have the Poznań Game Arena which is pretty similar to GamesConvention but much smaller and ESWC before it was shut down. Łódź is a small city about 140 km from Warsaw. Therefore, for many people this was the biggest obstruction. Personally I felt that this year only the real fans of e-sports appeared in the market hall and unlike previous tournaments, without people outside of the scene coming and seeing. Unofficial information says that on Saturday the event was visited by around 3000 people, but more precise numbers are going to be posted on the Cybersport website.

Lets be honest, this year was dominated by the ladies who came to win some money in the Pan-European Tournament, the only event for women with large prizes. Maciej 'vib' Pawłowski, head admin and one of the owners of Cybersport told me that they've planned the female tournament for almost 3 years and luckily enough this time it worked out. Ladies from all over the Europe came to Poland and played some really great matches. The funniest thing was that after the grand final it was said that game Pink Zinic vs Mousesports was the best match played in Poland for the last few years.

The thing that hit me the most was the fact that female players didn't act like divas. They were just typical girls who also play computer games, just like we do. For me as  a journalist that was very important because as I could get interviews very easily and communicate with no problems at all. The girls told me though that it was pretty hard for them to communicate with admins as most of them could not speak English so it took quite some time to resolve technical problems with computers or the Internet. There was also hilarious situation linked with this - just a few minutes before the prizes were given to the ladies, I approached the girls from Alternate aTTax to make an interview. IAMLOCO said 'you want it in Polish or English'. I thought it was obvious I want to conduct it in English so I took Julie to get few answers. When we came back I've noticed Eva was talking with the cybersport crew in Polish so you can imagine the look on my face that said 'what the f...'. When asked about how she spoke Polish and she didn't tell me that before, she said 'You could have asked. I thought you're not from Poland because you work for MYM'.

The CyberArena tournament didn't surprise us at all. For many years now it's been famous for being one of the best LAN tournaments in Poland, and it didn't dissapoint this weekend. There were some minor problems but it didn't affect the games too much. Players did their job and the best went home with money in their pockets. The only thing I felt disappointed of was the Counter Strike 1.6 male finals, where PGS was crushed by Vitriolic. I was hoping to see some interesting games since just two weeks ago they had big chance to win the WCG but they lost in a very close match. On the other hand Warcraft 3 was way different from one we saw at WCG. TeRRoR was 4th and paladyn 2nd. Almost took 1st place again.

The real party begun when we went to the after party, at the club called Chocolat on Saturday together with girls from Pink Zinic, Mousesports, Aurora gaming and Alternate aTTax. You know how we do it in Poland. Drinks on the table and owning the dancefloor together with TaZ from Vitriolic. There was some flirtatious vibe between some people and bonding with the rest. I'd love to give you more details on that but as Wiktor Wojtas said 'what happens in Chocolate, stays in Chocolate' so you can only guess what happened there. I met few friends from Polish clans and Cybersport staff and got to know that day before in the same club was other party that I couldn't attend. By the way, the look on some random guys faces thinking 'how the hell those few guys came with so many beautiful women'... priceless!

From the left: Bo, Svetaska, Pachella, IpSa, bMh, Uysy, zAAz, TaZ, Misio, Irene

Now for my biased thoughts. Spectators were the real problem, as they were not cheering at all. There were some great games played and nobody even clapped so together with bMh and our friends; we were screaming like crazy and even while I write this, I can't speak. But I think here in Poland we are used to having no people who want to cheer for their friends or favorite teams. Thumbs up to Bo who was helping us as hard as he could. Hopefully it'll change in the future. And for those of you who couldn't follow the event I present the top 3 for CyberArena 36i6 and Pan-European Tournament.

Pan-European Tournament:
Mousesports
Pink Zinic
Team Alternate

Counter Strike 1.6 PRO:
Vitriolic Gaming
D-link PGS
Benq DELTA

Warcraft 3 PRO:
AlMoSt
Paladyn
Show

There is a short list of people who I'd like to thank personally:

Team Speed-link - you guys were awesome and I really hope we will drink at the 2nd PET.
Mousesports for great attitude and much fun at the after-party.
Anja Møller aka 'Vildkatten' for great conversation and helping me to realize few things.
Julie and IamLoco from Team Alternate for the the party and the 'you want PL or ENG interview'?
Cybersport crew that I didn't know well before. See you anytime soon guys.
Jonas and Bo for getting to know you two. Also for the party and cheering with 3 crazy Poles.