czm: "I'm taking it one practice match at a time"
On March 1st, Paul ‘czm’ Nelson will add yet another major Quake LAN tournament to his storied competition history. Earlier this week, ESFI World spoke with him about the IEM World Championships in Hanover, Germany.
Unfortunately, czm fans probably won’t be very excited to hear that the American's preparation for potentially the most competitive tournament of 2011 has been somewhat lacking.
Paul 'czm' Nelson at the IEM American Finals in New York
Since the IEM North American Finals in New York back in October, where he placed fourth behind fellow qualifiers Vo0, DaHanG and rapha, Nelson has been traveling and finishing up his PhD, which hasn’t left him much time for practice. “I had been really looking forward to playing consistently and getting into good shape for the world finals,” he says, “but I ended up having to travel more or less non stop in the months in between. During the few days I’ve been home in between those trips, I apparently never managed to clean my desk off enough to have room to set up my keyboard and mouse pad to play some Quake.”
I apparently never managed to clean my desk off enough to have room to set up my keyboard and mouse pad to play some Quake.
In the past two weeks, he has begun to finally pick it up, but most will say that his preparation has come much too late. “I played in a 4v4 tourney [a week and a half ago] and a duel tourney [last weekend]. I hope to play some more duels this week. I don’t seem to be playing too badly and have a few more days to adopt a proper duel mentality. I’ll practice with whoever I can.”
The duel tournament that Nelson refers to was the CSN (Cyber-Sports.net) and Quake-Live.tv Quake Live Invite Duel Cup. His form was challenged when he played against John “ZeRo4” Hill in the winner bracket final, where the pair of legendary names in North American Quake faced off, eventually leaving czm in the lower bracket after a 0-2 loss. There, he would play against and defeat Ziel 2-1, setting up a rematch in the grand final against ZeRo4. ZeRo4 needed only three maps to beat czm, sweeping him 3-0 to win first place and $150. It was clear that czm wasn’t yet in the form he needs to be in to compete with the players waiting for him in Hanover, Germany. Even worse, he only had about one more week of practice before the tournament begins.
Nelson was already going to be considered an underdog going into the tournament, no matter how much practice he got. Now, he may be hoping he can at least put up a fight against the world’s best players. “I’ll definitely be an underdog and I am taking it one practice match at a time.” Asked if he thinks he may be a dark horse, he said, “If I advance out of the group stages, then yeah, I’m the dark horse.”
Quake Live - Group B
 Paul 'czm' Nelson |
 Anton 'cooller' Singov |
 Alexey 'Cypher' Yanushevsky |
 Sebastian 'Spart1e' Siira |
| Shane 'rapha' Hendrixson |
 Dan 'dandaking' De Sousa |
He faces a nearly impossible group. There’s last year’s champion Shane 'rapha' Hendrixson, not to mention IEM Europe’s victor Anton 'cooller' Singov. If that wasn’t enough, he’ll also have to face Alexey 'Cypher' Yanushevsky, Sebastian 'Spart1e' Siira and possibly the true dark horse of the tournament, Dan 'dandaking' De Sousa from Australia. Nelson gave us his predictions for his group, excluding himself: “The obvious answer based on past performances is that cooller, rapha and cypher will battle it out for the top 3. Spart1e is the dark horse contender and dandaking is not expected to contend for top 3. I know that back when I would have been favored to advance out of my groups that I would think about my closest few competitors and try to save up energy for the matches that I expected to be most difficult. Here, they’ll probably all be difficult, so I don’t have to go through the trouble.”
Cooller: "czm, if you are listening to me, let's do the final together."
As mentioned before, one of the competitors in his group is Russia’s Anton “cooller” Singov. Back in the day, the two sparred in some of the most memorable matches we’ll ever see in Quake 3. In a recent interview, Singov said that he’d be looking forward to playing against Nelson to hopefully relive some of those old memories. “czm, if you are listening to me, let’s do the final [together]” said the Russian. Is the feeling mutual? “It’s inspiring and encouraging for me to hear that he’s rooting for me (and himself) to make it to the final so that we might ‘rock it oldschool’, as one might say.” “That sounds great,” Nelson says. “Now, we just need to rig our group stage so that we both advance, end up on opposite sides of the bracket and beat everyone else en route to the final. I’m down. Any tips for me?”
Granted, czm isn’t feeling very confident about advancing to the final stages. Thankfully for us though, we’ll at least get to see the two stars play on such a grand stage once again, no matter the result. It’s the least we could ask for, and we’ll get it.
It’s still amusing and enjoyable to play here and there [...] the competition is still fun and challenging.
After such a long career, it’s great to see a player like czm continue to come back to this level of competition. “It’s still amusing and enjoyable to play here and there – the game itself is not quite as fresh and interesting as when it first came out and so getting ready for a tournament feels more like conditioning than discovery, but the competition is still fun and challenging.”
Disregarding his lack of preparation, it won’t deter many Quake fans from continuing to cheer for him. “I’ll do my best,” he said. “Really, I’ll put as much focus as I can into getting ready.”
How much can a player improve in one week? Soon, we’ll see. Nelson’s first match is in fact the first Quake Live match of the tournament and will be featured on the main ESL TV stream. It is scheduled against rapha on Tuesday at 10:35 CET (1:35 AM PST, 4:35 AM EST).
After IEM, Nelson told us he wouldn’t be opposed to attending this year’s QuakeCon event (August 4-7 in Dallas, Texas). It would be the first time he attends it in seven years. In 2004, he won the whole thing (and $25,000) after beating ZeRo4 in the finals.
Nelson concludes, "Thanks to my team Evil Geniuses for sending me to IEM and to my past, present or future practice partners for helping me get ready. Look forward to the following on my EG player blog: (1) a long essay that I wrote a few days after the IEM NA finals (but that hasn't been posted) describing my preparation for it, my thoughts on how my matches went, and so on. (2) further discussion of my preparation for and experience at the upcoming tournament."
Read more of our coverage of the IEM World Championships at our event page and don't miss the Score Center.
Photos: Julia Christophers
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