My IPL4 Journey Part 2: Apr 7th, Apr 8th, + Pics

Hello everyone! Again for those who do not know me, I’m ‘CheeseHeadLogic’ or otherwise known as Daniil. Recently I just came back from IPL4. I’ll save the formalities as they’re written in part 1.

If you haven’t yet, do go to part 1 http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/viewblog.php?id=328221 and read it first.

Oh and I’ll put more pictures at the end too! Also some stuff I sort of forgot during part 1.

So as promised I’m sitting here on Thursday writing the second half of this amazing trip. In part 1, basically I arrived on Thursday didn’t really do too much. Friday came around and it was game day. Unfortunately I got ousted in the losers bracket round 2(did you guys see how stacked that field was omg!) Had an overall record of 2-4 for matches with a win over twttrCeaser and loses by Annyeong.prime and LiquidTLO. The rest of the day I pretty much chilled in the players’ area, watched games, and met a lot of people and friends at the event until my eyes couldn’t stay open anymore. By the end of Friday I wasn’t exactly in the best of moods, but was more exhausted than
anything.

Sat Apr 7th – Sleeping in, IPL day 2, Pool play, White-Ra, GSTL

As I’m rolling around in this firm as can be bed(I like soft beds, my back isn’t bad yet lol) I finally decide to take a peek at my phone and see what time it is. In the other double several feet over I see Stefan in the same dilemma as me. We both take a look at the time. 8am……………
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Eventually when take two for the day happened it was around 1pm local time. I’m rested, I feel good, and in a great mood. Something I wish I could have felt the day prior. Being 1pm I think I’ve already missed a good 3 hours SC2 action, so I cleaned up and rushed downstairs to the open bracket area where pool play was getting held.

Open Bracket Room

This time the player area was a little less hectic. Only a few players actually where left at this point as pool play was the only part of the sc2 portion for IPL4. As I entered I heard word of that Idra just got knocked out, which made me laugh a little bit. Guess that’s karma…..or Korean terrans haha. Anyways as I’m scanning the room to see who is all here, I notice most of the players from the day prior were all up and either playing or watching streams from the player computers. Several press and spectators were around also to check out the action. As I’m about to walk over to the area where Dimaga, TT1, ToD, and QXC are sitting, I notice a swarm of people surrounding a player that I didn’t see the day before. Sitting there in the black and red TT shirt was Aleksey, or as most of you know him as White-Ra. Never meeting the man in person and being a slight fanboy I snake through the crowd to get a closer glimpse of what was going on. He was up against EGJYP in his last pool play match which at this point didn’t really matter as he was unfortunately 1-3 at the time. A couple small slip ups and the standard who has more colossus battle happened and White-Ra was out for good. Took this opportunity to speak to him and tell him good games and ask him how he was feeling. He was a little surprised I think when I spoke to him in Russian. A slight smile came across his face. I talked to him for a little bit longer, got his number and a picture with him and told him that I would try to meet up with him later at some point over the weekend. For the next couple hours I went over to the player area where Dimaga, TT1, and the rest were sitting and watch some of the pool play from IPL streams…..even though we were like 2 feet away from the actual players playing in them lol.

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4pm rolled around and the last matches were finishing up before GSTL was about to start. The IPL4 staff kicked us out of the area we were in to do a little clean up before GSTL started up, so we moved over the computers right across from White-RA. Now this is where being live at the event is so fucking cool! Dimaga says what’s up to White-RA and within a couple minutes both of them start practicing against each other. I’m sure you guys have heard the whole mass gaming stories when it comes to White-RA, this dude has Korean drive at heart. So there I am sitting next to Dimaga watching the two Ukrainians go at it(which was so entertaining you guys have no idea), and to my right there is a hilarious show match between Lani and Catz vs some randos from the crowd. To my left I hear Dimaga pouting “Protoss is so bullshit,” and to my right I hear Lani screaming “what now, what now!” It got funnier when the IPL4 staff started battling Dimaga and White-Ra to get them out of the room. Every time they tried to kick them out, you hear White-RA with his foreign accent, “ok just one more it will be quick.” Trust me if they weren’t moving, we weren’t moving. During this time I also got to meet and talk to one of the most humble personalities in Esports community, Tricia or as most people know as Megumixbear. Aside to the fact that I’m not really famous or anything in the community, I really understood where she came from in regards to staying so busy. A very underrated personality that I believe will have a good future and wish her the best. Eventually the IPL4 staff succeeded and it was time to get ready for the GSTL finals.
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GSTL Finals

After running up to the room to charge up the phone so I can blow up my twitter with updates, I came back down to the main stage as soon as possible. When I get there, it’s a freaking zoo. We’re talking a packed house. Press and spectators everywhere. I see an interview going on to my left and a little bit to the right of that is the Korean commentators station. As we try to fish through the sea of people and seats we finally find a good spot to kick it and watch the finals. Not going to go into all the matches and etc, because I assume most people watched the games or at least saw the result. All you guys want to hear anyways is what the reaction was when MKP lagged out of the game. To Dustin Browder adn Mike Morhaime it had to be scary as shit. Think of it this way, if you guys have ever been to sporting event of any sort and a ref just made a bullshit call that affected the outcome of the game, and the crowd just goes belligerent. It was a really tense atmosphere. I mean I had a pitchfork pop up in my hand and I was yelling with the rest of the crowd, “WE WANT LAN, WE WANT LAN, WE WANT LAN.” I’m happy though that it happened right in front of their face and they could get firsthand experience of how much that pisses off the public when that happens in a game. In regard to the re-game, from a professional stand point they had to do it, because it was still not a total GG, but from a player stand point I’m pretty sure Parting had the game won. Either way, when it was all said and done Marineking was able to carry Prime to a dominant victory the rest of the way through.
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Evening

Oh hold on a second, Saturday isn’t over just yet. Don’t forget, we’re in Vegas here. Just because Starcraft is done for the night doesn’t mean we’re humans don’t who like to have some fun, even if we are a bunch of nerds. As I head up to my room to change for the evening I text White-RA to see he what he is up to. Soon after I get a response that he’s down by the poker tables getting his gamble on. Sruff and I go down to check it out and there was the man himself, cigarette in one hand, cards in the other. We go over to say hi and see what’s going on. With Aleksey is a couple other men. The first who I haven’t mentioned yet but met a little earlier is Slava. A really cool and funny friend of White-RA’s who came out to Vegas to compete in the Open bracket as well. He was also foreign and could speak Russian, which was a bonus. The other man was sitting with him at the table who I didn’t recognize. Ends up being the owner of Playhem, Ryan DeSanto. I couldn’t think of anything to really say at first, and went full retard and was like, “hey I play on your tournament site all the time.” He laughed and we talked a little bit about the business side of Playhem, but overall a really nice guy. I saw him on Sunday and he recognized me and tossed me a T-shirt which was pretty cool too. So after hanging a little bit with White-RA and the other guys trying to learn 4 card crazy blah blah blah poker, I got the urge to gamble myself. The 2 games I’m good at are craps and hold em’. I had no clue where the hold em’ tables were so I just went to the craps tables behind me. Not planning a budget or to gamble at all during this trip I threw a hundred down on the table, YOLO dawg. An hour later I was down to 20 dollars on the verge of failing hard, though a little luck from a dude across the table got me back in and eventually I was up $160. I pulled out from the table, cashed in my chips and went to see what Sruff was doing. He was busy losing money at that 4 card crazy poker table soo I left him be, got a few more beers and headed up for the night.
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Sun Apr 8th – Championship Sunday, Drinking, More drinking, After–Party

So this was sort of a weird day, because for whatever reason I actually cannot recall the first half that well. All I really remember was waking up to Stefan being rolled up in a cocoon with his blankets, which later he flourished into a beautiful hung over butterfly. Then after that I think I just went down to the players’ area again in the open bracket room, and hung with some of the pros to watch the games.
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I’ll fast forward a little bit towards the mid day. As I’m watching the games I’m slowly starting to get a little upset at watching Startale.Squirtle’s games. As a Terran player nothing makes me sicker right now than watching a TvP and having the protoss 2 base all in you. In Squirtle’s case he was doing that stupid 2 base colossus all in over and over and over, which was getting very annoying so it was really hard to watch any series that had him in it. Eventually he knocked out Marineking, and followed that up with a 2-0 over MMA(even though he played his ass off and deserved wins, losses to a shitty race and build.) As I’m watching him and Nestea play I get a brilliant idea in my head, instead of buying the beer for 8 buks a pop I should just go the Walgreens next door and get a 17.00 dollar bottle of Baccardi Gold, and a 1.50 bottle of Coke. Might as well get a little a tipsy and enjoy 2 base all in after 2 base all in. Well you guys watched the matches and saw that it went into a second bo5, so I had a little time to work on that bottle, overall was feeling great after the Finals, not sure whether it was from the Baccardi or from Alive winning, we’ll just go with Alive winning for
Esports sake.
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Already getting my drink on at the finals, it was time for the after party.

After Party

Before I go into any details of the after party, I will leave some stuff out due to the fact I don’t want to get any players in trouble. With that said, Nerds go freaking HAM when it comes to a party. So we get all freshened up for the night and head down the where the supposed party was supposed to happen, eventually find where this is happening. It was all gravy at first. We arrive at the front and they are denying people left and right, feeding everyone bullshit that it’s ‘staff only and twitch tv people only.’ Players are supposedly allowed in there. I’m a little tipsy but no retarded. I look down to the half floor which is where most of the people were for the event and I see several of the pros already down there. Whip out the phone, hit up Aleksey. The guy shows up like a knight and rescues Stefan, Slava, and I for a boring ass night and gets us in. Staff only my ass, Cheeseheadlogic is in! Pretty much from their it turned into a total shit show, everyone is drinking, bar tabs are rising, we’re drinking away with all the pros at this point. Mid floor bar closes, everyone moves down to the first floor and the party continues for the next few hours. I’m talking to guys like Scoots about business and future plans, and the layout of Esports right now. You can’t just do that type of stuff in regular setting without a close relation to those type of people. Now I’m not going say this is the most I have ever drank, but damn I got really close. It’s ok I kept my composure through most of the night I think. Met Anna Prosser, Polt and talked to Leenock for a while. Got into a good conversation with Killer and his friend about South America. Was able to chill with Ryung for a little which was freaking awesome since he is my favorite Korean player. I joked with him about the whole thing with him and MMA and he made fun of him. I later asked him how about the rest of SlayerS like Boxer, he also threw thumbs down on him which made all of us laugh our asses off. The guy lives up to his humor and trolling ability. Most of the recollection of that night comes from pictures too haha. It was somewhere around 5am I think where I finally decided to go back and get some sleep as we had to get up for check out a few hours later. Overall this was probably one of my favorite nights ever.
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Apr 9th – The hangover, Chelsea vs Fulham, flight back

It’s 10am and alarms are blarring in our room. Finally able to get a sense of where I am and pick my phone up at least. Throw one of my 7 pillows I had for my bed at Stefan to wake him up. We’re hung over as can be and pack as quickly as our bodies would allow. Get down to the lobby and it’s a total mess. All of IPL is there and it just looks sad. Hungover person after hungover person, players are sleeping on one another, poor posture by everyone, and just the body language told the whole story. Again everyone had a great night though, so it’s all good. We eventually check out, pay for the room and now have several hours before either one of our flights leaves. No point to stay at an airport forever so we just went to the second floor to get some food and maybe something to watch since the EA sports place on the first floor was closed.

Chelsea vs Fulham

The last time I was in Vegas, was last year, I did a little sports betting which I enjoyed. This is where the Chelsea vs Fulham game comes in. If there was something better to bet on I would……sure as hell not going to bet on baseball. Anyways I take Chelsea to win by 1 for $40, Stefan drop $20 on Chelsea also. Chelsea takes an early lead off a PK caused by a hand ball in the box so I’m all giddy even though odds of them winning would make me $4 I think. Now I’m getting some food in my stomach, downing some water, and starting to feel like normal self a little bit. Out of nowhere around the 80th minute, that bastard Clint Dempsey flies in on a corner kick and heads the ball which deflect off a player into the goal tying the game 1-1. 13 Minutes later there is 40 bucks down the drain and it’s time to go catch my flight. My connecting flight into Utah before Colorado, had PainUser right behind me, which was pretty neat. I talked to him a little bit as we landed, and wished him the best of luck in the future. A couple hours later and I was finally home, back in the skype call with my teams just trying to gather myself at what I had experienced.

What IPL mean to me?

IPL4 for me was an opportunity of a lifetime. This was exactly what I had fantasized sort of for over a year. I was able to play in a big time tournament with probably one of the toughest fields ever out there. I was able to meet all the players and personalities in the Esports world. I was able to observe and learn and just soak in what it was like to be at a big time event with big time people. I will never ever forget this weekend.

Future for me?

After having such a great time at IPL4, I’m already planning to go to one or two MLG events in the near future for 2012. Being able to compete with the top players gave me a bar at which I need to reach and it has motivated me to continue to get better. Coming back already I have been playing with more confidence and determination. As of yesterday I was able to get a personal milestone where I reached my KR account to top Diamond playing pure Macro games, which if you know me cheesy agrresive self is an achievement on its own. Both my NA and EU are back to Masters and NA is looking really good this season as well. If I do decide to go to Anaheim I will take the rest of this week to sort of goof and play a little bit more casually and try out other games like Dota2. Then I will kick into gear for 7 weeks to train as hard as possible to be ready for June.

Thank You for all the Help and Support!

Without my teams, friends, family, and supporters I doubt I would have ever gotten to this point. I especially want to thank my teams xO and my CSL team for helping me prep for this event, without it I would have gotten bounced earlier no doubt.

Other Notables from IPL4
*I met my good friend Koshka on Friday and Saturday
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*Also got to meet the girl I bug the most when it comes to CSL stuff Miss Mona Zhang, she gave me a cool CSL pin to! You jelly?

*I said it above but meeting Ryung was absolutely great being my fav Korean pro
*Thank You to White-RA for being so damn amazing and kind. Stuff like that never goes unnoticed. If you ever need a place to crash in CO, I’m your man.
*Big Thanks to Stefan for traveling out with me, trip would have been a little tough on me and maybe awkward if I didn’t have at least one familiar face around.

Fun Fact = Bar tab for the weekend 171.06

Thank you to all who read the blog, I know it’s a long piece to read, but I really do hope you guys enjoyed it. If you saw me there, do please say hi to me. I also encourage every if they get a chance at least once in your life go out to one of these events.

If you guys want to get in a little closer contact with me
Follow me on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/cheeseheadlogic
Follow me on Twitch TV: http://www.twitch.tv/cheeseheadlogic
Follow me on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/cheeseheadlogic

Thanks again everyone
-CheeseHeadLogic

Some bonus pictures I took during the trip: I have more than this, but being a little lazy about uploading them all lol.

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