Summary:
I am trying to build a gaming house in Helsinki. Namshar and I tried it for 3 weeks and it was a fantastic experience. We were trying to focus on simple lifestyle things, which require discipline, but are ideal for the long term success of an idealistic project like this.
The idea:
This idea started from just the urge of wanting to be in an environment where one can feel the passion of playing starcraft all day long. Discipline is a lot easier to achieve with more than person and Namshar was the perfect candidate. He is a very kind and rational person and I can be eccentric and obsessive, so it is not easy to get along with me in certain situations. Our approach to the game is similar in terms of believing solid play is the way and we had some friendly conversation from last year’s DH Stockholm and our friendship grew from there. It is not just me but a lot of top European zergs respect his idealistic playstyle.
A Sophon is a proton unraveled into a 2-dimension plane so circuits can be etched onto it. Then it becomes programmable super computer that is reverted back into its 3 dimensional state and can travel almost at the speed of light. This is from the latest award winning Hugo award novel “Three Body Problem”.
The theory:
From a purely idealistic perspective I want this team house to reach the pinnacle of practice efficiency. It is the only thing that matters. The way I am going to explain everything revolves around the number “3”.
The simplest way to describe the game starcraft 2 in 1 sentence is “The balance between economy, technology and military over time to create an overwhelming army that wins the crucial battle(s) that leads to an eventual destruction of enemy structures”.
3 is very important since the 3 main factors to consider in starcraft is economy, technology and military, however military being a lot more important than the other 2 factors. This is a debate for another day.
To focus on good practice, one must obtain a good balance between physical, psychological and in game condition (skill). In order to achieve this, we must create an optimal environment that focuses on food, sleep and exercise to compliment the critical grinding that we do daily.
All in all, the good practice can be summed up in 3 sentences.
1. Eat a plentiful breakfast, 2 warm meals for lunch and dinner respectively and snack when necessary.
2. Sleep at a fixed time. Sunlight is simply the best regulator for me since I cannot have curtains due to dust allergy (more about it below)
3. Daily exercise, alternating between light walking, heavier cardio and muscles in between days.
After laying down a good foundation, critical practice by analyzing what went wrong in games and studying the best is the best way to improve.
My health problems:
+ Show Spoiler +
I suffer from health issues. Two main things are FODMAP diet and hyper sensitive mucous membranes. It is quite easy to tackle digestion by not consuming garlic, onions and not overdosing on gluten etc. However, it takes a war against entropy to deal with my hyper sensitive mucous membranes. I need to clean dust daily using Allergy Union certified products (HEPA 13 filter). My nose super easily creates a lot mucous in a dusty or smelly environment. This causes difficulty in breathing, which in turn causes bad sleep if cleaning that is not done well. Chronic fatigue all over the day is the result of this and this date I practice around 5-7 games a day on average.
With the help of Rob, he has taught me basic methods just like mentioned above. With the consistent things mentioned above taught by Robert and the help of top European zergs like Snute, I have gone from low Gm to around top 30 Gm (Europe).
With the help of Rob, he has taught me basic methods just like mentioned above. With the consistent things mentioned above taught by Robert and the help of top European zergs like Snute, I have gone from low Gm to around top 30 Gm (Europe).
Our performance and conclusion:
Our initial 3 weeks (total period of this alpha phase) went well, and I would rate us somewhere in between 70-80% in terms of achieving this ideal practice environment. The house was always clean and we were able to eat 2 warm meals around 95% of the days.
Namshar was did heavy cardio and muscle workouts around 80% of the days and I did light workouts and swimming 4 times.
The biggest struggle was sleeping schedule which we ran into problems. This is definitely something that is hard to control due to obligations in tournaments and natural differences in body energy levels.
We need to have more rigorous planning with everything we do, laid down in a document. This includes set times of what times the computer must shut down to all the specific choirs each individual is responsible for.
Ending:
It is definitely in the plan to expand this for the future. We not only need foreigners to go to Korea to gain more skill, but also infrastructure here in Europe. It is my ambition to achieve a gaming house where I strive for absolute efficiency, only this way on the long term can we have a chance against Koreans. It is not enough to have a few top tier foreigners take matches of Koreans, but raise the overall level of foreigners so our practice level in our region rises.
Special thanks to Robert Yip who has guided me when I was low GM to this point. All of this is based his knowledge and expertise.
Picture is with calt, best Finnish Terran.