As most of you may know, I attended the recent ECN event in QLD. This was my first ever out of state nationals I have attended and it was a great experience for me. I had the chance to meet all the people that I play with and talk to online and I am so surprised. I saw a different side of the community that I had never seen before, a side different to all the banter and abuse I see online. To those that have not attended such events in the past, I would encourage you to do so at least once. I was constantly amazed at how nice everyone is in real life and how friendly they are. Even those I didn’t get along with online felt like I had been friends with them for years.

I would like to take this chance to enlighten you all with a few stories about my experiences to show you how fun a nationals is.

Arrival and introductions

I arrived at Elysium on Friday afternoon after checking into my hotel. I saw some friendly faces from Sydney and I immediately stuck to who I was familiar with. As the day went on I introduced myself to a lot of people that I recognised from pictures from past events. There was one person at the venue I was not familiar with as I had not seen him before. He approached me and we started talking for what seemed like ages and after talking to him for so long I felt it would be rude to ask who he was so I didn't ask. Some how the topic of conversation was steered to who hates each other the most in the community. So naturally I said "Ah yeah, PeetyG hates my guts". As many of you know PeetyG and I do not get along at all online and there is always a banter war between us. This person then replied with the words that I least expected him to say "I am PeteyG". To my surprise the person that I despised online for giving me so much shit in the past was a person that I got along with really well in real life. We then proceeded to have a laugh about the whole situation over a few games of pool at the cafe over the next few days (I schooled him in how to play pool BTW). Of course I felt like a retard in this situation but it has made me realise the difference in personalities between online and real life.

Poker with the boys

Friday night at Elysium was coming to an end and the players that were praccing began to leave. I was invited to play poker back at exile5's apartment along with Aftershock. I had never actually met anyone from Aftershock so I went along and got to meet everyone from the group. Everyone was instantly cracking jokes and having a mad laugh so I naturally joined in and seemed to get along great with all the players. We played Texas hold em with a $20 buy in, 1 re-buy per person and only in the first hour. After almost an hour of shit hands I go all in with an ace + jack of diamonds. Ferg calls me something like a 5 + 9 offsite. Don't ask me why ... Of course he hit a pair and I got jack shit and I had to re-buy with 1 minute left on the timer. As the game went on I got on a streak and knocked 3 or 4 players out and built up a big stack of chips. I made it to the final with Fergie and the blinds were a fortune but I was playing my cards very well. In the final hand of the game I had 2 low spades in my hand and the flop came out 6, 6 and king with 2 of them being spades. After a round of raising back and forth between me and Ferg, the turn comes out and its a spade. I wanted Ferg to push me and try to the take the pot so I checked. Ferg played straight into my trap and raised me all in. We flip the cards over and I was winning with a flush and Ferg had a king putting him on 2 pair. The river comes out and it was a king putting Ferg on a full house and me in a distant second place. Very lucky I must say ... BASTARD! After the game Rickeh decides to do a head to head 1 hand game for $10. What started off as a 1 hand game turned to a long night of head to head games with pots reaching $200 for a single hand!!! It was CRAZY. Everyone was playing these games with large amounts of money for hours. As you can imagine thousands of dollars changed hands throughout the night with TeddyT winning like 8 head to head games in a row putting him on almost $400 in winnings. I was up about $200 and it was time for everyone to get some sleep before the tournament begins the next day.

Saturday Game day

Upon arriving to the cafe I am greeted by some new and unfamiliar faces, so I began making introductions and socialising with most of the players. The matches were already live and I was noticing all the hard work and prac that teams put in by their game play. Every round was met with a strategy from both sides of the map and the amount of teamwork and communication was at an all time high for every team in attendance. Naturally, there were many upsets with PGC and Vikings forcing many unexpected results in the group stages of the event, and there was a lot of disappointments too for teams Qlimax, zk and archaic. However the games went and the teams played on this day, It would result in either a night of drowning sorrows or a night of celebrations. Saturday night couldn't come fast enough with most teams needing to let loose after a long day of stress and tight games. I was invited to go to myzterys dads house for a night with the zk boys. We ordered some pizza and after eating we ventured on our mission of the night, to demolish a case of beer and a quater of smoke (Myztery rolls the best Js ever). Long into the night we were suffering from a serious case of asian eyes and even breathing felt like too much effort at the time. As Xrey will say my face looked like an emotionless smiley face with tiny slits for eyes. It was almost 5 am and we were determined to watch the fight scene of avatar on the massive projector in the house, I am unsure of how far the other boys go into the fight scene but I passed out within 5 seconds of laying down ....

Sunday Finals

Morning came and it was that time, we were supposed to get up at 8am and rush to the cafe so Spitty can play the finals as he stayed at the house too. This of course was not possible considering the state we were in the night before. We managed to get to the cafe around 9 and I was hating life due to feeling so turd so I rushed to my hotel, had a shower and relaxed for an hour before heading back to the cafe. The games were already live and there was upsets for the teams already. Team immunity defeated Ashock 2 maps to 0 and knocked them out of the finals and Vikings defeated and knocked out v300 who were a favourite to win. Exile 5 defeated Athletico in an intense and close battle and the finals came down to two teams look strong, Exile 5 and team Immunity. As all the players from the weekend gathered to watch the game unfold, The game booths both on the inside and outside were packed with spectators.

The game went live and the teams battled ferociously to claim the title of Australia’s best team and win a big share of the 2.5k prize pool. Screams of victory would soon echo through the LAN centre as Immunity defeated Exile5 2 maps to 0. A special mention to both Pupajon and Ferg who were winning crucial rounds for their teams. All the players/spectators stuck around and congratulated both teams on doing so well and awaited the final prizes ceremony. The top 3 teams Immunity, Exile5 and Vikings were all presented with a share of the huge prize pool and this brought the event to an end. The plan was to celebrate the end of the event back at myztery’s mansion but due to the volatile state I was in I thought it best to have a quiet dinner and get some sleep for the flight back to Sydney the next day.

I would like to congratulate team Immunity on their great win almost undefeated (par the Agamers match).

A thank you to Elysium for the use of their great cafe.

A thank you to all the players that attended and made this event possible.

A special thank you for the George the man "Beedee" for doing a magnificent job with the speedy media coverage of the event.

Last and definitely not least and biggest Thank you of all to Chris "Gomez" for running such an amazing event and I hope to attend many more events such as this in the future.