So after a long time of not doing any interviews, I picked up on my task again. Last time Artosis picked Day[9] to be interviewed. The interview certainly lived up to its expectations. Although the responses are pretty lengthy, they're really interesting, even if I say so myself. If you missed my previous interviews you can read them all here.
Interview
Sup Day[9]! It's been hard getting a hold of you. Can you introduce yourself to the people not familiar with the Plott family tree?
Hi! My name is Sean Plott! I'm a zerg user from the USA. I've been playing competitively for about 10 years now (jesus) and I am the younger brother of the infamous Tasteless! Nick and I grew up playing and discussing Starcraft together. Nowadays, with even our mom posting on TL.net, Starcraft is our family icon : ].
So you still consider yourself a competitive player? I thought you quit StarCraft for poker? How involved are you still with StarCraft?
I'm not sure why anyone would say I quit Starcraft for poker. I like playing poker occasionally, but I've always LOVED playing Starcraft. That said, I've stopped competing since about summer of 2007 when the WCG PanAm championship occured. I went to an extremely difficult undergraduate college (Harvey Mudd) and work was just too difficult during my senior year to be able to go to tournaments, so I just didn't play very much.
I played some in my senior year (because, again, i LOVE starcraft) but then didn't get to play for a few months. When the USA WCG qualifiers came around, I only had time to play in one of the qualifiers without practicing at all for it.
After months of not really playing, its hard to win when you're feeling super rusty. In short, I got smashed pretty easily because I played terribly. I know if I practiced I'd get back in form, but I wanted to spend my time doing other things that summer.
So, even though i don't play much these days, I still watch every single pro match that gets played anywhere. GOMTV, OGN, MBC, proleague, special events: you name it, I've seen it.
It's kind of interesting that both you and your brother made it pretty big in the American competitive scene. Do you think this 'friendly family competition' made you strive to get better? Do you think this is what happened to Luxury and Yellow[arnc] too? In short: How does having a brother that plays StarCraft influence your motivation to get better?
I think anytime you're around someone who has some interest, it just rubs off on you, whether its family or friend. I mean if all my friends started playing risk a ton, iId learn how to play it and eventually get into it too. I think it's very unusual for someone to get into something all by themselves (hence why communities like TL.net grow so big and are fun to hang out in).
Since Nick and I lived in the same house (and shared much of the same space), I'd just come home and someone would be playing Starcraft. A lot of our friends play Starcraft too so its always a good topic of conversation : ]. I don't know if Nick and I were ever very competitive with one another though.
Also, I know nothing about the personal interaction between Luxury and Yellow[arnc]. I recognize their play styles though.
It just seems so weird that when thousands of Koreans aspire to become progamers, two succesful ones happen to be twin brothers. If it's not in the social aspect, could it be in the genes?
Talent and skill comes from good practice techniques and hard work and nothing else. There is no such thing as natural talent or a 'talent gene'. There are tons of scientific articles about this sort of thing, about how the mind learns and improves at given tasks.
A part of it is just time: hours and hours and hours of play, analysis and review. But a huge part is something called "deliberate practice". People who do "deliberate practice" are specifically working on predetermined aspects of their game all the time. So I feel like so many thousands don't improve because they don't know how to perform deliberate practice to improve their games. On top of that, most of them just don't play anywhere near enough.
And again, the fact that luxury and yellow are twins doesn't really have anything to do with it in my book. There are plenty of brothers where one is good and the other isn't.
Wow, that's some nice insight. Anyway, let's forget about StarCraft for a moment and focus on what's going on in your life. What are you aspiring to be? What does your daily life look like? What are your hobbies?
My undergraduate degree was in Mathematics. I'm still very much interested in mathematics/mathematical puzzles and cool mathematical proofs. Right now, I'm getting a Masters in Interactive Media from the USC school of cinematic arts. Interactive Media = video game design. SooOOOOO I'm hoping to be a video game designer as a career.
The day to day life for Day[9] involves going to class, working on game projects and school stuff. In my free time I like watching a few TV shows (like Lost, Dexter, 24). I LOVE funny things like "Whose line is it anyway" or youtube clips/standup/funny stories. In general though, I love games. I always have a big list of games I'm trying to work through.
Also, I'm reading a ton about the game Go (baduk) and trying to teach myself how to play that. I'll occasionally dabble in some poker. I also looooove exercising. I go to the gym 2 hours every day (it's mostly running though because I LOVE running). I'm also a super huge electronic music fan. My favorite artist of all time is Trentemoller (get his album: The Last Resort. it's the best album EVER). Some of my other favorite artists include: Chris Clark, Murcof, Proem, Sneaker Pimps, DJ Shadow, Apparat, Symbion Project, Boards of Canada, Secret Frequency Crew.
As a result of my love for twitchy fast reflex games and electronic music, I've also devoted a huge amount of time to BeatmaniaIIDX (awesome DJ game). BeatmaniaIIDX is definitely the #2 most played game by me (after StarCraft).
I expected to see something about you doing standup in there. How's that 'project' going?
Oh yeah the standup thing! I love love telling funny stories and making people laugh. Laughing is probably my favorite thing in the whole world. So, my senior year, there is this big final luncheon where the graduating class invites all their family and friends, the presidents and faculty do speeches about the future of our graduates, and the student class president gets up and talks about brotherhood and how we'll miss eachother. The student organizing it asked "Sean can you just like say something funny for 15 minutes to fill in the time?". I was like "LOL yeah sure np!". Hence I blabbed about e-Harmony for 15 minutes. I remember being super happy with how it went at the time.
It's not like the best standup ever or something, haha. But considering it was a really big crowd and was my first time ever doing a big story like that in front of a group of people, I was really happy with how it went.
In terms of my "projects" at school: I haven't really gotten to buckle down and work on 1 big game for a semester. HOWEVER, that's exactly what I'm doing next semester! I'm also building a really cool game board for a game I'm trying to design right now, too. Not sure how it's gonna look, but that's the big project over winter break!
Make sure you share those games with TL.net! You have to catch your flight very soon, so we'll just round up here. A while ago I adopted the YGosu system of the interviewee appointing the next interviewee. Who do you have in mind?
Oh crap! Well you have to realize how I play StarCraft. I spent probably 95% of my time on PGT/iCCUP/WGT ladders smurfing and trying to improve my play. As a result, I never developed a large number of close friendships. HOWEVER, I did make a great friend out of FrozenArbiter. He's always incredibly fun to talk to and super friendly and always has interesting things to say.
Unfortunately, there's a no-staff rule. Try again.
Oh mother fuck. I have no friends. I'd like to abuse this opportunity to make some more. People who want to, can always friend me on Facebook. Look for Sean Plott USC Grad student '11.
Anyways, I'll have to go for BigBalls then. He and I were both math majors. A huge number of people who play StarCraft just love playing it. But, like me, BigBalls loves analyzing play and thinking methodically.
I mean we both love playing, but I definitely relate to that analytic side. Plus he's fucking hilarious and a monster gentleman.
He should make for an interesting interview. Any last words / shoutouts to the friends you don't have?
Oh yes indeed: TL.net should look forward to my x-mas present! (it'll be slightly after xmas though since I don't have a comp for 3 weeks).
Shoutouts: <3 my brother and my mama and my best buddy cambria! And my stuffed rabbit Manfred, he totally rules.
As always, feedback is welcome. tl;dr is less welcome.
also day9, you're welcome, for that time at WCG USA in long beach cali when you borrowed my jacket because your hands were cold before you played... Froz i think at the time.
Loved the entire interview, but i think that line is pretty bs. Of course some people are more naturally talented than others in certain fields, including Starcraft. Whilst a lot of practice will overcome this difference, i'm positive if i sat down and play as much Starcraft in my life as flash has, against the same people, in the same scenario, he would 100% destroy me. There are a ton of kids out there playing the game as much as flash/bisu/jaedong/stork, some probably even more so, who are still B-teamers who cant rise in the ranks because they're simply not as talented and dont have the 'gift' to play at the level these top players do.
Loved the entire interview, but i think that line is pretty bs. Of course some people are more naturally talented than others in certain fields, including Starcraft. Whilst a lot of practice will overcome this difference, i'm positive if i sat down and play as much Starcraft in my life as flash has, against the same people, in the same scenario, he would 100% destroy me. There are a ton of kids out there playing the game as much as flash/bisu/jaedong/stork, some probably even more so, who are still B-teamers who cant rise in the ranks because they're simply not as talented and dont have the 'gift' to play at the level these top players do.
I actually agree with his statement. I'm a noob so my opinion might not have that much value, but I feel like people that seem to be naturally good at stuff like bw are just super dedicated. It's a mind thing, they hate losing so much that they just try to explore every area to improve in the game - mechanics, mind game, build orders etc. If you train as much as Flash did, you will not be as good as him because of a huge number of factors, most importantly environment (imo it's a lot more easy to become a pro when you're korean because you're always around people that love the game - I for one don't know anyone IRL), but also your motivation/dedication is probably nothing compared to flash's.
I loooved the interview. I've always been a fan of Day and whatever I read from him was oh so amazing. He just seems to be a super nice person, just like his brother. Keep going and never leave TL plz
I remember a few years ago I was watching one of your VODs w/ commentary, and someone named "Ghost-X" whispered you (looked like it was sent to entire friend list). On USWest, Ghost-X is my good buddy Jose who lives up in norcal. Do you know Jose or was tat just a coincidence? Perhaps you don't remember him, it was a while ago.
I love how you love to make people laugh. I think it's a gift you got, that it comes so easily for you, and you are not ashamed of the stories you tell about yourself. You're awesome.
OMG, day[9] gets +10 for mentioning deliberate practice! I own the "Cambridge Handbook of Expertise and Expert performance" and I've always found it interesting that a player like Jaedong possesses mechanics like no other player. For example, Savior's large army control, flanking, movement is not as crisp as Jaedong's. He must practice as much as Jaedong does, 10 hours a day. But practice/experience != deliberate practice so it leads me to conclude that Savior doesn't "deliberately practice" large army control as much as Jaedong does.
In an elite music school in Germany, researchers found that the discrepancy in skill even among the elite violin players were attributed to deliberate practice. They found that the very best engaged in it about 5,000 hours more than the less elite violin players. They all spent approximately 50 hours a week on violin related activities but the non-elite players engaged in less deliberate practice and more in violin related activites; playing with others, reading about it, listening to music, discussing it etc. Whereas the elite violin players spent the majority of their 50 hours a week deliberately practicing. It's the same with starcraft. Some of us can say we've been playing it for 10 years, maybe five hours weekly, but have remained around D-level. There are some players who also spent around 10 years, five hours weekly, but who are B-level.
Loved the entire interview, but i think that line is pretty bs. Of course some people are more naturally talented than others in certain fields, including Starcraft. Whilst a lot of practice will overcome this difference, i'm positive if i sat down and play as much Starcraft in my life as flash has, against the same people, in the same scenario, he would 100% destroy me. There are a ton of kids out there playing the game as much as flash/bisu/jaedong/stork, some probably even more so, who are still B-teamers who cant rise in the ranks because they're simply not as talented and dont have the 'gift' to play at the level these top players do.
Actually, I dispute the existence of natural talent, whoever trains the most and wants something enough will get it. Sure you need to be skilled but you learn this yourself, you aren't born with an innate advantage in computer games
EPT
![[image loading]](http://photos-g.ll.facebook.com/photos-ll-snc1/v313/170/0/13302914/n13302914_32653982_9611.jpg)
