[Guide] Mindcontrol - Mental strategies for SC

Introduction

This guide is about mental strategies helping you to become a better Starcraft player. Since mental training has become standard for almost every sport played on a competitive level (or for players who just want to improve), Starcraft players can greatly benefit from the strategies and tools professional athletes use. In the first part of the guide, I will discuss a variety of topics concerning mental strategies - for example, relaxation, concentration, intention and so on. In the second part of the guide, I asked several top bw players from the present about their own mental strategies. These players are INcontrol, vGl-RaGe, ips.Zero, ESC.Kolll, Oystein and ToT)Strafe(.

In order to give the players I asked something in return, I will give one of them the second beta key (that is, if I am able to win). I will let teamliquid.net decide, which contribution is the most helpful one - Vote here [link]. The player with the most votes will be given the second beta key.

I am by no means an expert concerning this topic. My experiences comes from what I have been teached by my trainer when I still played chess competitively and what I have read over the years. If you find only one of the tips and strategies in here useful and apply it to your game, this guide has fulfilled its purpose.

Part I: Mental Strategies for Starcraft

Overview:

Bodyposture
Relaxation
Concentration
Intention
Motivation
Gameface
Confidence
Guaranteeing the win
Evolution

Bodyposture

A few years ago, when Starcraft was still played at LANs (often with tourneys and nice prices), I once observed one of the better German players (back then) playing. In fact, a lot of people did, because it was quite a sight: He was slumped forward in his chair, his head only a few inches away from the monitor; you could see how his shoulders cramped and also hear his shallow breathing. He lost his game. This episode made a huge impact on me, because at that time, I played chess competitively and had a trainer. One of his first lessons was to teach me how to sit properly when playing chess. I found it ridiculous and unnecessary.

It was only at this LAN when I understood how important posture was - not only for your mind, but also for your appearance. In Starcraft, you are already playing against one opponent. You don’t need another one, namely yourself. Many of the strategies and tips in here are aimed towards you concentrating your energy and focus and making the best of it. Thus it is important that you can fully concentrate on the game and are not distracted or limited by a wrong body posture.

Next, there are a few simple rules that will help you to sit relaxed.

1. Place both feets firmly on the ground.

This should be a given, but often it is not. Dont cross your legs when playing - sooner or later, one of it will go numb, especially then when you need 100% focus in order to flank the Terran properly. Also make sure that your knees point in the same direction as your feet, since it will releave much of the stress you put on them. Placing your feets that way will also make it easier for you to

2. Sit straight.

This is very important, and I am not talking about the longtime consequences of playing several years with a slumped upper body (horrible posture and a weak lower back). If you slump your upper body, your chest basically collapses, making it much more difficult for you to breathe. If you don’t get enough oxygen, you will become tired sooner. If you become tired, you will make mistakes. If you make mistakes, you will lose the game. Your shoulders will also (unconsciously) rise if you slump, making your neck stiff over a while and preventing your brain from being properly supplied with blood (which makes you, again, become tired more quickly). Having your shoulders in such an unnatural position will also increase the risk of cramps. Sit straight by using this visualization: With your feets firmly planted on the ground, imagine a cross in your back making your chest expanding to the sides and your head towards the ceiling. Take a deep breath, align your body that way, breath out, relax.

Since you have to focus most of your attention on your game rather than your posture, you will inevitably slump sooner or later. That is not a problem if you constantly remind yourself to re-align your body. It also helps to make sure that you sit _on_ your chair and not _in_ it. It is also very important to get up from time to time during games and stretch/loosen up a bit -especially when sitting in front of the PC for a long time. It will prevent your muscles from going numb or cramping and will thus help you in your game.

Relaxation

Relaxation is probably one of the most important things in almost every competitive sport. If you are tense, you are like a fist -you can strike, but that is your only possibility. If you are relaxed, you are an open hand - you can pull, pinch, grab and, if needed, still make a fist. So the more relaxed you are, the better your brain works and the more possibilites you can choose from.

I experienced that firsthand when I played several blitz tourneys in chess, where you only have five minutes for the entire game. No matter how good your position was, when the time was up you lost. So it became very hectic at the end of each game, because both players often only had mere seconds and played very fast, thus often sacrificing the advantage they had because they ruined their good position and got checkmated even before the time ran out. I always used to start shaking, especially in important games (I still do today when playing a good player in Starcraft) and it’s needless to say that my concentration suffered from this.

We already covered the importance of your bodyposture while playing. It is also very important in order to relax - if you play hunched over with your shoulders high and your breathing shallow, it is impossibly to relax. So if you have a good posture, relaxation will be easier for you. The most common method for relaxation is to control your breath. Starcraft players breath differently though - if you watch VODs a lot, you will notice that a lot of players play with their mouth (unconsciously) open. This is normal, since when you are under stress, your body will automatically try to get more oxygen, resulting in the half open "gamer mouth". I don’t want to tell you how you should breath, since you have been doing this all your life. However, I want to offer you a sequence that helped me to relax when the game became hectic and I noticed that I was tense:

Breathe deeply through your nose. Imagine inhaling a certain aroma you really like, like fresh coffee for example. Rather than breathing in your chest, try to get the air inside of your stomach - if it expands outwards, you are doing it right.
Deeply exhale through your mouth and make sure there will be no air left in your lungs. While doing this, combine this action by a certain keyword and image - those will become linked over time to precisely that action. For example, when I exhale I use "Free" as a keyword (which I only think and not speak out loud) and imagine taking a very cold shower, relaxing my whole body. The more often you practice this sequence, the faster your body (and in return your mind too) will relax. Choose your very own keyword and image that relaxes you. You can practice this at first while not playing with your eyes closed, but with further training, your body will instantly react to the keyword.

Concentration

Concentration is maybe the most important thing you need to learn when you want to play Starcraft at a high level. It is said that the "secret" of Kasparov were not his highly developed chess skills but his ability to concentrate to 100% when the game was at a critical point. I am absolutely convinced that this kind of laserlike concentration (together with dedication) is the main reason that seperates the good from the bad player.

Concentration needs preparation. It is a lot harder to concentrate if you haven’t slept enough, need to take a leak, are hungry, emotionally upset or not even in the mood to play Starcraft. Of course, professional players and athletes still have to play their A-game even when faced with those problems, but they have been doing so for a long time. In the beginning, it is easier to practice concentration under optimal conditions. If you are confident with your basics in such an environment, you will also be able to maintain your focus when the circumstances are not 100% ideal - like when playing at a LAN, maybe with an unfamiliar hardware setup or people close up watching your game and breathing in your ear.

A nice way of coping with the close proximity of smelly old men during chess tournies was something I will call The Bubble. Basically, you visualize a transparent bubble around your body. You can still notice other people and your surroundings, but you decide what thoughts, smells, words or influences of any kind you want to let pass through your bubble and which not. Before a game, I would make it clear to myself, that the only thing allowed inside of my bubble would be the board and the clock - no other thoughts.

Everytime I noticed something trying to enter my private space inside that bubble, I would visualize how it bumped against my shield and then concentrate again on my game. Another way that improved my concentration tremendously was to set an anchor point where I could always return to when I lost concentration.

To understand this, try to accept concentration as follows: You never truly lose concentration, you only concentrate on other things when you lose your focus. The trick is to bring the ever jumping ape in your head back to the point where you want to have it - again and again. Thus, you need a place or ritual you can always return to when you notice that you have lost your focus.

In chess, for example, very young players (~6-10) would be given the advice to count all of their pieces once they noticed that they had lost their focus. When they became older, they would instead perform a blundercheck (checking whether your pieces are attacked and can be taken by your opponent and vice versa), which was more challenging but also more useful for your game - after all, watching out for your opponents threats is a key element. From there, you can concentrate again on your gameplan, decide, what you want to do and what you want to avoid and thus plan your next action.

If you notice while playing Starcraft that you have lost your focus, try to find your own haven that will bring you back on the track. This is for many professional athletes a certain ritual - for example, watch tennis players, how they let the ball bounce off the ground for always the exact amount of times before they serve. If I find my thoughts wander in Starcraft, I always return to my base first and make sure that my macro works, namely that I produce units from all facilities and that I have enough supply. As long as you aren’t a Korean progamer, macro will be often the decisive element when playing other players on your level. So even if you have lost your focus during the game, as long as you notice and macro, you know that you are still in the game and have a decent chance of winning. Like in my previous example, after you have checked upon your macro, your next step can be to remind yourself of your current gameplan - What is important right now? What do you want to achieve, what do you want to prevent? Then you are back on track and have regained your focus.

Intention

Concentration and intention are in certain aspects very similiar to each other. You need to be concentrated in order to clarify your intention and then execute it. So first of all, you should be really clear about your intention or what you really want to achieve. This already starts before the game - do you want to play just for fun or do you want to practice? If it’s the latter, what exactly do you want to practice and how do you realize that you have achieved it?

You should really ask yourself those questions if you want to improve, because otherwise, you will just play thousands of games without noticing any changes. It is of course important to play for fun, trying other races, maps or build orders but it is also vital to know what exactly in your game you want to improve. If you dont know what port you are headed for, every wind in any direction is bad. Maybe you have realized that your muta micro hasn’t been up to par lately and you want to change that.

Your first intention would be to train those scenario where you attack marines and medics with a group of mutas of your own. Instead of playing countless games, where this kind if situation maybe never or rarely occurs due to certain factors (like you win the game before you even get to mutas or your opponents on ICC dont want to play terran) you try to get one of the muta micro maps Chill used to practice on shortly before he started to play. You set yourself a somewhat realistic goal like killing a certain amount of marines without losing too much of your own mutas and then you start to practice. If you manage to achieve your set goal, you know for certain that your time was not in vain and well spent. You may raise the bar a bit higher for the next day. If you do only 15 minutes a day consistently for a few weeks, you will become better at your mutalisk control.

The same goes of course for any other aspects you want to improve - got problems with getting the timing down for a specific build on a certain map? Try to find a practice partner where the both of you train certain scenarios in return. Maybe you are bored when it is your partners time do to something, but you will have made more progress than randomly playing on ICC without working on your problems in your game.

The plural of intentions could be gameplan. To have a gameplan or not decides the outcome in a match between two players of even skill, which is especially true for Starcraft. It is a fact that most players at the lower ranks only have a very faint idea of knowing what to do besides the basics. The better the player the more details he knows about the game and the more possible intentions his opponent has. That is why a gameplan is so essential - if you don’t know what to do, your actions are largely ineffective, because they are not orientated towards a certain goal. As a kid, I had great problems dealing with the Kings Indian Defence (a chess opening) as white. Basically, black closes the center and attacks the white king while white counters on the queen side. That summed up everything I knew concerning that opening.

Before I could win in that "matchup" on that "map", I needed a gameplan, a guideline I could follow in order to reach my goal. So with the help of my trainer, I started to analyze countless games where that specific opening was played. I learned, that black in general doesnt want the queens exchanged, because it would diminish his attacking power, that good players would play a7-a5 in order to prevent my b4 at the queen side as long as possible, that the movement of the black knight at the king side always prepares f7-f5 and so on - a lot of many little details. Yet exactly those details helped me to understand, what and especially how my opponent wanted his intentions to be achieved. I no longer had a blurry image in my head, but a map I could follow and that showed me what way my opponent could go. It is the same way with Starcraft. Today we have access to numerous replays, VODs and even FP streams by top players in and outside Korea, so we have the ability to analyze their game and adopt their ideas.

Try at first to state the obvious intentions of a player - like, with zerg to expand early and gain an economical advantage in terms of gas to afford enough mutalisks in order to harass the terran as long as possible so zerg can take even more expansions with gas and use his high level units like defilers and ultralisks. Now, try to break down how players follow and achieve those intentions. If the terran has also expanded early, some players will make some lings and try to sneak inside the terrans main to wreak havoc - on what maps did it work? When and why did it work or not work? What details played a key role? And most importantly: How can you apply the knowledge to your game? Preparing and executing a gameplan seems like a lot of work, but it will give you a definite advantage over players who just mindlessly play their game without any thoughts. Even though fast expanding and macro have become bigger over the years, Starcraft is still a strategy game.

Motivation

Motivation is paramount when you want to achieve something. If you are motivated enough, you can do almost anything. Unfortunately, we are not always motivated for the "right" things - like studying, analzying replays or games for mistakes or writing guides in time. In this part, I am going to give some pointers on how you can motivate yourself for specific tasks.

Motivation for your bad matchup

There was a time when I loathed playing TvZ, mostly because I would lose everytime. Instead of working on my game, asking myself why I lost and how I could deal with it, I just avoided the matchup completely. That was because everytime I was about to see or play a TvZ, my mind was filled with scenes of stacked mutalisks raiding my peonlines, lurkers killing all of my marines, and when I managed to survive that long, swarm would put an end to me anyway. So it is not very surprising that I didn’t want to play TvZ anymore.

A few months later I would see the Starcraft movie Boxer The Emperor for the first time. Boxer was always my favorite player, and I loved how in the movie he displayed his excellent micro, killing tons of zerg units with just a few marines and medics. That was the turning point for me: TvZ no longer only consisted of zerg raping terran but also vice versa. I had a certain set of believes and images in a drawer called TvZ, and I replaced them. TvZ became fun again when I worked on my micro and was able to kill lurkers with a spread of my marines, when I dropped stimmed firebats in drones, or when I used the eraser on drones. TvZ became my bad matchup because I focused on the bad sides of it, so I would often try to avoid that matchup altogether. Once I realized that there was more to the matchup, I started to like it again and had fun when playing. Fun is the best motivation, so I played more and in return improved faster.

What is your weak matchup and why? What makes it fun for you? If you dont know, watch some highlight videos - even in TvT, usually a very boring matchup (though not always) you sometimes have the chance to legitimately use nukes, doing doom drops with a lot of ships or breaking a contain in a spectacular manner. Focus on the good parts of your bad matchup and it will soon become good too.

Motivation when in a slump

From time to time, everyone has a slump and loses a lot of games. It is only natural, because Starcraft is very old and there are a lot of talented players who train harder and are more dedicated. It is sometimes a sign to evolve as a player, because one has reached a certain level where the old strategies and tactics simply are no longer enough to compete.

It can be very hard to motivate yourself to get back on track and pull yourself together. What counters this best is something I would like to call your very own "Trophy room". This trophy room only exists in form of your replays or memories, where you were able to beat players who were stronger than you, managed to pull off impressive micro or were simply just proud of a certain action you did. Create a replayfolder just for this specific purpose; only add replays you deem worthy and only watch those when you are in a slump and have no motivation at all. Those games will remind you of your own skill, that you can do better and your losing streak is only temporary. You can also put those scenes in your mind together, dubbed with music - your very own highlight movie. It is important to have a possibilty to break out of that state of negative emotions that comes naturally when one is in a slump, and by reminding yourself of your own strengths, you do this effectively.

Your Gameface

There is a big difference how professional athlethes act when they compete in a match or tourney and when they are not competing. As a matter of fact, sometimes you would ask yourself how shy and curteous that football player can be in RL when on the field he becomes a seemingly whole new person, radiating with confidence, relaxed and a "dont-fuck-with-me" attitude. Professional athletes often create some kind of alter-ego for themselves, some kind of rolemodel that has become reality. To give an example: If you play football but are not prepared to enforce yourself aggressively, you will most likely not go too far. You can, however, create this kind of attitude for yourself, and assume it when on the field. This is not about becoming schizophrenic but creating some kind of mental tool that will help you to achieve your goals on the field. Your gameface is not necessarily a whole new person, it only contains all the aspects, traits and characteristics you need in order to win the game. Maybe you are too lazy to train or to try a new build order, but your alter ego, your competitive personality has enough discipline to do it.

Again, this is not about becoming someone else but to augment the characteristics of your personality you need for the competition. Confidence or discipline are no traits you can learn or lose; they are attitudes you can assume every time you want. If you rarely assume the trait confidence, it will be of course not that effective as if you do it daily. That is why it is so important to have a specific mindset for competitions, where there is no room for negative emotions or unnecessary thoughts but only the traits you need - for example, a clear and focused mind, discipline, confidence and the desire to give your best. If you always want to play with the most ressources you have, it would be very useful to create such a gameface yourself. Try to analyze what traits you are lacking and what attitudes and believes you want to change. Start with one thing at a time, for example staying calm and mannered for a series of ten games.

If you managed to do that, focus on another quality. Consciously go into that state of mindset before every game (or every time you need it) by doing some kind of ritual - a lot of professional athletes do seemingly strange things like always putting on the right shoe first for exactly that reason. When I still played chess, my mindset was that of a samurai and by making the first move on the board, I would draw my (imaginary) sword. That was the trigger for me: now its on, and I will not stop giving my best until I won or have been checkmated. There was no room for other thoughts than those concerning the game and no other emotions than the joy for the challenge.

Creating and putting on a gameface is an extremely powerful tool which will also help you greatly in Starcraft. There is no reason to pretend, that you have the same mutamicro like July, because you dont have invested the same amount of practice like him - but you can be as confident, or disciplined (or fat) as him. It is in moments where you feel too lazy or too tired or too anything that you have to put on your gameface and do the job - if you can’t do it, your competitive personality can. Our minds are cluttered with unnecessary thoughts and emotions, which will hinder and restrict us to give our best when in a match. That is why many pros are seemingly so extremely different when on the field and that is why it could give you an edge when playing Starcraft.

Confidence

This is pretty selfexplanatory. Without confidence in your own abilities, you won’t achieve much. I think it is no coincidence that a lot of the high tier players are a bit arrogant (sometimes even bad mannered), because they know how good they are. They proved themselves in tournies, leagues or matches and played with the best in top clans. You can separate the really confident from the arrogant ones by claiming, that they are in fact very bad at Starcraft and their recent wins were a mixture of luck and imbalance. A lot of arrogant players with no real confidence will immediately try to defend themselves by giving an account of their latest wins or by verbally counterattacking. They do this because in secret, they fear that the person is right because they had the same thoughts about their game. People who are truly confident in their game and skills won’t even bother to answer. This has a lot to do with the image we have of ourselves and how we deal with it when other people try to change said image, or, in other words, how self-conscious you are.

It has a lot to do with confidence, for example: Assume that you have been challenged by someone who said that you couldn’t win vs a C player for your life. It would be confident to accept the challenge and believing in yourself. It would show a lot of self-consciousness if you instead just think "Well, I have played a lot of C-players and I won against a lot of them too, so what’s the point?" In the latter case, you have a certain image of yourself in which you believe therefore you find it unnecessary to prove yourself - because you know for certain, that you can do it.

It therefore adds to your confidence, because you have the strong belief that you can do something. To know ones strengths and weaknesses is very important, because only then can you - and only you - judge yourself. You don’t have to accept or believe how other people judge you because you already made your mind up concerning yourself and know what you can do and can’t do. When I started to play Starcraft, a lot of people would tell me that my wins were mere luck and I only have a bit of a talent in 2on2. Unfortunately, I believed them and adopted their opinion about me and thought it true. Don’t let that happen to you - a realistic opinion of and by yourself is very important if you want to become more confident.

So analyze yourself: What are your strengths, what are your weaknesses? If you know that you are good with little units and aggressive builds in the early game, you should try to play out exactly those scenarios, even if the trend nowadays is more about fast expanding. On the other hand, if you know that you are weak with fast expansion builds, you can work on that and overcome it - and become more confident, because now you have another build order in your repertoire and thus a wider range of tools you can use against your opponent. True confidence comes from knowing with certainty that you can do something. If you have practiced a specific opening with all its details and varieties over and over again, you know what will happen and that you will be able to deal with it. What are your strong points you can use against your opponent? What other "weapons" can you develop to be less transparent for your opponent?

Confidence is also about having the right attitude, though. If you go into the game with thoughts like "oh god this guy plays for mTw, he must be really strong" you probably will be intimidated and not be able to play your A-game. Vice versa, if you are too (unrealistically) confident like "that guy is dead anyway ez" you are likely to take too many risks and lose. Either state to "just give my best" and then really play to the best of your abilities or don't occupy yourself at all with those thoughts and solely focus on your game and the problems at hand.

Guaranteeing the win

Kasparov, the former chess world champion, was known for one thing above all: his preparation. He was one of the first professional players to use PCs. He demanded a list of participants for tournaments months in advance. He studied hundreds of games of his opponents in order to find weaknesses. It is said that he won a lot of tournaments "at home" because of his huge amount of work. What Kasparov and other professional athletes from other sports have in common is that they do prepare a lot, or, in other words, they stack their advantages - they accumulate as many as possible in order to increase their chances for victory as much as possible. It is something that I have noticed is common to a lot of very good players. When I played in leagues, I often would come online some minutes before the game and then play, often without even knowing the maps. I had no advantage I could rely on.

I know a (very good) player who would do a lot of work before a BWCL game - like, getting to know the maps, creating and discussing strategies and cheese builds on those, finding replays of the team he was supposed to play and analyzing them, getting warmed up an hour before the game with a friend, devising a plan what maps he will chose when he wins/loses, what map he will play first, what he is doing when his opponent lags and so on. It seems rather excessive, but his preparations almost always pay off. He knows a lot more than his opponents and he abuses that advantage to no end.

If you want to win, you should collect as many advantages as you can. For league games, you can do your "homework" like mentioned above, but there also things you can do when playing in a ladder like ICC, where you have absolutely no idea whom you will be playing against:

Your mindset

This is something I have already covered under Gameface. In general, try to be as relaxed and happy as you can be. Hear some good music to get yourself ready. Pump yourself up a bit, trash talk with friends and strengthen your confidence. Expect to win, simply because you are you.

Your allies

You need allies in order to train specific builds and strategies - and, of course, to have fun. Having someone to test the new maps is a great help, since you can freely discuss strategies and builds.

Your homework

See above - try to gain as much information as possible concerning maps and the most popular (cheese) strategies on them. This will pay off greatly especially on the lower levels of ICC, where cheesing is a lot more common than on the higher levels.

Your timing

Play when you are fit and have the desire to play - there is no use to force you to play when you are sick or feeling ill. If you rather want to do something else, your mind will wander anyway, so play some other time. Of course, if you are really serious about your progress, you should train even if you don’t feel 100% fit - you have to decide for yourself. Korean progamers sacrifice the better part of the day in order to become (and stay) good, so if they can do +12h Starcraft a day, maybe you can do at least 1h even if you dont feel too good.

Your gear

Are your keyboard, mouse and monitor working properly? Do you have the plugin to de-activate the windows keys? There is no need for you to pull a Boxer and remove all the keys you dont need, but maybe you could do something about the "1" and "2" keys which kind of jam because you spam 1a2a3a4a every game .

Evolution

When I started out Starcraft, I would try many different things like trying to cannon my opponent, build an evolution chamber after pool for early grades or go pure vulture vs Protoss. Soon I would realize that some strategies were more effective than others - I had reached a certain level and had to adapt.

So I discarded some strategies and kept playing the other ones. For some time, I would win more games - up to a certain point, again. Though at that time, I didn't change my game. I realised that when I did that the first time, I was still a newbie who didn't know much about the game. When I hit the "next level", I was simply too lazy to change my strategies again. Why should I anyway? I still won more than I lost (that was on bnet, of course), and those few weren’t too important.

What I didnt realize was, that I stopped to evolve as a player. I had a certain set of strategies I would use every game. Those would sometimes work out, and sometimes not. I didnt bother to check why, I was just happy to win. But I would never get past a certain stage, because more experienced players would simply abuse the holes in my builds.

I know that good players often see a build in a VOD and then start to copy it. I know a lot of players who dont do it at all, because they might lose a few games until they get used to it. The game is still developing though, and new maps and gamestyles are emerging at least every new ICC season.

Therefore, it is really important to have a faint idea what build orders are en vogue so you at least know what your opponents might play against you. A new build or style will challenge your skills and your previosusly existing understanding of the game - you will grow as a player. You may have to break a few old habits, but you will gain new insights and possibilities. In the end, you will be able to understand more of the game and its facets.

So try something new. Get rid of that super safe expansion build and try something more aggressive. Try to cheese, just to see how your opponent reacts to it. When they are able to hold it off, you learnt something new. If it works, you win the game. Either way - you win. Start a new account and play to explore the game and not to win. It really brings the fun back when you are offracing and are again somewhat of a newbie. Also, you will gain a lot of insights for your own race when playing with a different one.

Part II: Learn from the masters

I asked several gamers about their innergame and improving in general:

INcontrol

+ Show Spoiler +

- You are behind in a very important game (for example a tourney final or qualification game). How do you come back? Is there something special you say to yourself, a thought you remind yourself of?

One of the most important aspects of being competitive in SCBW is having ice in your veins. Not everything goes according to plan. Sometimes the first map is fixed and bad for your particular race, mu, style or it is contrasty really good for your opponent. Or maybe you just go 0-1. In any case, that needs to be only the beginning if you as a player, want to be anything of note. Whenever I find myself in an 0-1 situation in a bo3 or bo5 etc, I buckle down and go with my strengths. Personally, I am a more micro/aggression oriented player so in game 2 I need to utilize that to its fullest on my map (as per MOST competitions).
This may seem simple and silly but if you literally focus on just doing what you think you are best at, it takes your mind off of giving the momentum to the player that defeated you in game 1. Since losing is contagious, playing each game as if it was a bo1 can really help to get back into the series.

- What is the single most useful skill concerning your race one should definitely focus the most about?

As a zerg player I cannot help but to say that the single most important skill (if we could only pick one) would be patience. I cannot tell you how many games I have lost, where I look back and watch the replay, only to find had I waited for just that extra few units, or those tanks to unsiege after destroying the sunkens I would have destroyed that force and probably taken the game. It is easy for a zerg player to become impatient and rapidly counter, attack, quick tech or do an all in. Our race is fragile and depends on quick decisions. While having the speed to make the right choice is valuable, it is infinitely more valuable to make the right choice and then wait for the right moment to execute that choice.

- What do you think is the fastest way to improve in Starcraft? What is in your opinion the best way to train?

The fastest way to improve in starcraft these days is a 3 part plan: A. play LOTS of ladder games on ICCUP. B. Supplement those games with reading and asking educated ish questions on the strategy guide of TL.net/liquipedia. Finally, C. After each loss, asking politely for advice. This last part seems silly and illogical since it is completely dependent on your opponents good will, same language ability etc.. But I find more often than not if you ask politely, you will get some tidbits. Perhaps even a really nice person that will watch the replay with you and offer some advice. If you go about this 3 part plan and even go beyond by watching some professional vods, befriending a better player or joining a clan of more advanced skill you will become a better scbw player.

- How do you maintain concentration during games?

Maintaining concentration is one of the most valuable assets to playing a good Scbw game. For me, I do this by constantly focusing on my strategy and the mental calculus I maintain for predicting my opponents moves. Since map, mu, positioning, prior games, opponents tendencies (if known) and various other factors are all worth noting when playing someone, I have to work through these and decide on predictions that will gain me an advantage. Focusing on those factors allows me to remain mentally in the game/concentrated.

- Do you have a special kind of ritual you do before/during games? Like, warming up before a game with a micromap or setting your hotkeys for your units in a specific manner? If yes, why did you start doing this and what is the reason for it?

Yes and I find it quite funny.. I normally adjust things around my cpu in a very very specific way. I will move the keyboard a millimeter in one direction or the other as well as things like my mousepad, speakers, a drink etc. This is probably a symptom of my control obsession or some other sub-conscious insecurity but it helps me (I think) be comfortable for the game. During the beginning of an actual game I will spam keys to get my fingers acquainted with key locations/warmed up. I also found at lans I need to play several games as zerg before the match, not just a few like I used to.

- Do you have a certain routine you are trying to keep up during the game? For example, first macro, then micro, then harass and then macro again?

No, each game is an independent game with considerations from prior games vs this opponent or on that map or in that mu. I try and make myself as unpredictable as is possible, which ironically makes me sometimes a BIT predictable. I have tendencies and style just like any other player but I try and shake up everything once in awhile so as to make my opponent think twice about blind-countering me or making assumptions that could lead to their gain.

- What is it about your own game that makes you confident? (Mechanics? Intelligence? APM? Macro? Your builds?) When in game, what is it about a specific opponent that makes you more confident? (Easy recon? History? Too few scv's ? Late pylons?) And what can a specific opponent do to make you feel less confident?

I am considered a very intelligent player. My mechanics are atrocious and my speed is relatively slow. I compensate both of these things by making typically very intelligent decisions as to what my opponent will be doing and what I can do about that that will gain me an advantage. I also compensate for my lack of speed with map positioning. Be it that cluster of held lurkers, that expansion with scourge patrolling or that small crackling drop.. I usually am very good about making a lot of use out of a small number of things.

Recently I worked on my mechanics and since then my macro has advanced which has made me a more competitive player. Working on our weaknesses constantly allows us to advance.

An opponent that makes me less confident is one that has vastly superior mechanics/speed. I lose an awful lot of games to Koreans just simply because they are playing that game on an entirely other level in sheer mechanics. Fortunately, even the most mechanically sound like Nony, IdrA or Ret are still not anywhere near the top korean level which allows me to feel like I still have a chance.

- How do you motivate yourself to train, even when you are not in the mood to play (considering you absolutely have to due to a tourney or league coming up soon and you are really out of shape)?

It isn't a task to motivate me to play when I am out of shape. I REALLY want to win everything, it is just in my nature. So I will prioritize things accordingly when I want to win a tourney.. like gf, school, gym, work etc.. I will literally make POOR social choices to make sure I can compete in that next qualifier.

- Anything else you would like to add concerning your own inner game?

Not at this time If I gave too much (maybe I already did!) I will get figured out! Reinventing yourself and remaining as misunderstood/unpredictable is as important as having a rock solid build order.

vGl-RaGe

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- You are behind in a very important game (for example a tourney final or qualification game). How do you come
back? Is there something special you say to yourself, a thought you remind yourself of?

Well obviously this depends on what the game situation is.
When I'm behind against a better player, who's ahead economically, I often look at which timing attack opportunities I have, and try to emphasize them as good as possible to try and do some damage. For instance, cutting SCVs to get those extra factories up before my +1 weapon upgrade is done in TvP to try to do some damage.
When I'm behind against a worse player, I'll obviously try to stretch the game to the late game, where my skill advantage will be bigger. Usually this just involves turtling and taking more bases while doing harassment.
When I'm behind, it's hard to keep frustration and disappointment at bay. In some sense, you're just hoping he makes a mistake, and all you can do is widen the window for your opponent's mistakes by playing in a certain way.
If there's one thought I keep reminding myself of, it's that the closer I can make the game, the closer I get to sealing that disadvantage gap, the more information on his gameplay I can get from the replay, and therefor the better my play will be in the next game.

- What is the single most useful skill concerning your race one should definitely focus the most about?

Well, this is really matchup dependent. In general, I think Terran has a big emphasis on game decision making more than anything else. Although Terran vs Zerg used to be more mechanical than anything else, recent strategical developments in that matchup certainly decreased the importance of mechanics by a bit.

- What is the single most useful overall skill one needs in order to become a better Starcraft player?

Good decision making and overall idea of gameflow. Mechanics are obviously really important too, but that can only come with practice. I honestly believe that you can just stand behind any D- player while he plays and tell him what to do, and he could achieve C- rank. This is of course generally speaking, if his mechanics are just too bad theres not much you can do.

- What do you think is the fastest way to improve in Starcraft? What is in your opinion the best way to train?

In my opinion, the best way to train is to train a lot with the same group of people, with each person in that group having his different style. Also, it helps a lot if they're all better than you.
When you play a lot with the same person, the game just gets to a different level. You get very familiar with his style, and he with yours, resulting in the gameplay in your games progressively evolving. You start to become more aware of the impact of the little things, and learn to manipulate those more to try and get an advantage. There was a point where I played a huge amount of games with DJEtterStyle a couple of years ago, and that improved my TvP a lot. Somewhat more recently, I played a lot of games with Chill. Those games basically made my PvZ what it is today, I didn't even play the matchup before that.

- How do you maintain concentration during games?

Hard to explain. A game just has this rhythm you follow, and the moment you get out of it everything starts to fall apart.

- Do you have a special kind of ritual you do before/during games? Like, warming up before a game with a micromap or setting your hotkeys for your units in a specific manner? If yes, why did you start doing this and what is the reason for it?

Something I used to a lot was, when the game starts, instead of spamming randomly, selecting all your individual SCVs from left to right or from top to bottom continuously. This will just get you more aware of your mouse accuracy if it's your first game.

- Do you have a certain routine you are trying to keep up during the game?
For example, first macro, then micro, then harass and then macro again?

I just try to decide whats more important at a certain point, and if thats inconclusive, just stick to that basic rhythm you have down.
That basic rhythm is so important, even more for slower players than for fast players. If you have a feeling when your marines/vultures finish and you have to make new ones, you don't have to waste APM going back to your buildings to check how far they are from done. Just getting that routine down that's like:
1. Realizing your building units are about to finish.
2. Putting your army in a more neutral spot before you macro if necessary.
3. Make new units.
4. Adding the units that just came out to your hotkeys.
5. Adding depots.

is just so important. Obviously this routine is really race dependent. I think this is the main reason why PJ had to stick to one race when he went to Korea, getting that routine down perfectly for 2 different races is just so hard.

- What is it about your own game that makes you confident? (Mechanics? Intelligence? APM? Macro? Your builds?)
When in game, what is it about a specific opponent that makes you more confident? (Easy recon? History? Too few scv's ? Late pylons?)

I like to think it's mostly my ability to adapt to my opponent's play well, and making the good decisions. That's why I don't like playing unpredictable opponents. Being able to pinpoint what exact build he's doing and having a decent idea of how he plans to follow it up makes me a lot more comfortable than knowing that whatever build he does he'll make some macro mistakes in it.

And what can a specific opponent do to make you feel less confident?

Completely outplaying me. If I'm up against a player that has better mechanics, I can often still win games against him. If he understand the game better, it's almost impossible for me to come out on top. So when I see him perfectly anticipating my moves, I lose confidence really quickly.

- How do you motivate yourself to train, even when you are not in the mood to play (considering you absolutely have to due to a tourney or league coming up soon and you are really out of shape)?

Well this doesn't really apply to me since I'm not that serious of a player. When I don't feel like playing, I don't play.

- Anything else you would like to add concerning your own inner game?

Hmm, don't think there is.

ips.Zero (Ger-B)

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- You are behind in a very important game (for example a tourney final or qualification game). How do you come
back? Is there something special you say to yourself, a thought you remind yourself of?

>> I try to think that a comeback is always possible with good harass or defence and that i would regret not playing 100% if the game gets close.
Its a quite typical situation that the player who is ahead does an attack that he shouldn't have done, getting you back into the game.
So even i am behind i try to play my best instead of giving up, because any mistake the opponent makes might change the momentum.

- What is the single most useful skill concerning your race one should definitely focus the most about?

>> As a terran player i have to say mechanics. Its really hard to come back from a failed push due to bad micro or having no army because you forgot to build supplies.
For terran its especially important to build depots continuously, because limited building space and the overall building mechanism of terran make it much harder to build them fast like protoss and zerg could do.
An example why mechanics are so important are the current mech builds. I am sure that most of them were tried years ago, but they didn't work without todays vulture control that is a key in those strategies.

- What is the single most useful overall skill one needs in order to become a better Starcraft player?

>> Its a question of attitude and endurance. You have to be able to lose games. Some players ragequit after every lose and abuse their way to a higher rank, because they can't deal with losing.
You will only get better if you learn from your loses instead of blaming the opponent for using cheesy builds or being lucky.
Of course thats not always the case and every player might get mad after being dt rushed, but in the end good players accept that those strategic builds are part of the game and that their own mistakes led to the defeat.

- What do you think is the fastest way to improve in Starcraft? What is in your opinion the best way to train?

>> Playing a massive amount of iccup games is required, because you can easily find opponents of your skill level with different styles.
If you don't know exactly why you lost some games you should look at the replays and analyze the reasons. Good allies/trainers that can give you advice and point out weaknesses will
rapidly increase your development. As the skill of a player is not only defined by his iccup rank but mostly by results in tourneys and leagues, i think that its vey helpfull to join a team to participate in leagues and also participate in tourneys from the beginning.
Playing a series in a league or tourney is different from single games on iccup, because you have to take the strategies played before into account.

- How do you maintain concentration during games?

>> If the game is important and you really want to win then it shouldn't be a problem to keep the focus, just try to minimize distractions like tv,skype or so beforehand.

- Do you have a special kind of ritual you do before/during games? Like, warming up before a game with a micromap or setting your hotkeys for your units in a specific manner? If yes, why did you start doing this and what is the reason for it?

>> No i don't have any specific routine, but i like to have fast music when the game starts. It gets me into the right mood.

- Do you have a certain routine you are trying to keep up during the game?
For example, first macro, then micro, then harass and then macro again?

>> Never thought about that. I think its too dependent on the strategies and will play out differently in every individual game.

- What is it about your own game that makes you confident? (Mechanics? Intelligence? APM? Macro? Your builds?)

>> I think that my macro is pretty good in important games. When i am in shape i am usually quite good at suspecting what my opponent will do, so intelligence also plays an important part.

When in game, what is it about a specific opponent that makes you more confident? (Easy recon? History? Too few scv's ? Late pylons?)

>> If an opponent loses his scouting peon very early it will make me confident.

And what can a specific oppenent do to make you feel less confident?

>> Good worker harassment, probes can be really annoying^^. Also lots of drops make me feel unconfident, because it forces me to be more defensive than i would like to be.

- How do you motivate yourself to train, even when you are not in the mood to play (considering you absolutely
have to due to a tourney or league coming up soon and you are really out of shape)?

>> I just get online to play with allies and through re- rere- and rerere-games i will end up playing more than i wanted.

- Anything else you would like to add concerning your own inner game?

>> Its just a game, losing is not the end of the world.

ESC.Kolll

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- You are behind in a very important game (for example a tourney final or qualification game). How do you come back? Is there something special you say to yourself, a thought you remind yourself of?

I try to play my best to the end and simultaneously think of a gameplan for the next map.

- What is the single most useful skill concerning your race one should definitely focus the most about?

For zerg, definitely multitasking and macro.

- What is the single most useful overall skill one needs in order to become a better Starcraft player?

Endurance and patience.

- What do you think is the fastest way to improve in Starcraft? What is in your opinion the best way to train?

The fastest way is to play mass games with standard buildorders.

- How do you maintain concentration during games?

When nothing else works, I sometimes just hit my head and think „CONCENTRATE, CONCENTRATE“.

- Do you have a special kind of ritual you do before/during games? Like, warming up before a game with a
micromap or setting your hotkeys for your units in a specific manner? If yes, why did you start doing this
and what is the reason for it?

I dont have a specific ritual before games.

- Do you have a certain routine you are trying to keep up during the game?
For example, first macro, then micro, then harass and then macro again?

That always depends on what my opponent is doing, I adapt to it and deal with the things that (will) come.

- What is it about your own game that makes you confident? (Mechanics? Intelligence? APM? Macro? Your builds?)

When in game, what is it about a specific opponent that makes you more confident? (Easy recon? History? Too few scv's ? Late pylons?) And what can a specific oppenent do to make you feel less confident?

I am most confident when my opponent plays a standard buildorder. My confidence increases when I know what he is usually pllaying and how I counter it.
Unorthodox buildorders make me feel less confident.

- How do you motivate yourself to train, even when you are not in the mood to play (considering you absolutely
have to due to a tourney or league coming up soon and you are really out of shape)?

I watch VODs by good players and more often than not I then want to play myself.

Oystein

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- You are behind in a very important game (for example a tourney final or qualification game). How do you come
back? Is there something special you say to yourself, a thought you remind yourself of?

I dont really play that many important games, but if I am down in CWs etc I usually just think to myself "I am good enough to beat anyone in the foreign scene when I play my best Starcraft, so coming back is always a possibility" Also I always try to focus on getting my own game perfected, instead of changing according to what my opponent do, since I am very confident in my straight up macro game.

- What is the single most useful skill concerning your race one should definitely focus the most about?

I play all races so its kind of hard to give an answer to this, but I guess I can make one for P since I play that the most. I would say macro and since P is a very reaction based Race learning the dynamics of the certain matchups so you get a better understanding of when you need to add more gateways\tech\cannons etc.

- What is the single most useful overall skill one need in order to become a better Starcraft player?

I would say determination to constantly work on improving your own game. Even if you lose a lot to keep on playing more and look over reps and just constantly have the will to work hard on it, because getting good at StarCraft is a long process most of the time.

- What do you think is the fastest way to improve in Starcraft? What is in your opinion the best way to train?

I would say determination to constantly work on improving your own game. Even if you lose a lot to keep on playing more and look over reps and just constantly have the will to work hard on it, because getting good at StarCraft is a long process most of the time.

- How do you maintain during concentration during games?

Way to often I lose focus during games One of my biggest weaknesses is that I am highly streaky, I can suck for days when playing unfocused and not caring, while I can hit a hot streak where I play up towards my max potential. Also when I start losing some games in a row I get cranky and play worse in the games coming up.

- Do you have a special kind of ritual you do before/during games? Like, warming up before a game with a micromap or setting your hotkeys for your units in a specific manner? If yes, why did you start doing this and what is the reason for it?

No I don`t really have any ritual beside using the same kind of hotkeys pretty much every game. Sometimes I will spam my hotkeys and drag select workers etc, while other times I just sit and chill out until the pace naturally increases in the game.

- Do you have a certain routine you are trying to keep up during the game?
For example, first macro, then micro, then harass and then macro again?

Yeah pretty much in every matchup I go manually back to macro in mostly a steady cycle. Timings that are sort of becoming natural, I don`t really think about going back to macro, I just to it on instinct most of the time. In most battles I will go back to macro once at least, and often I try to get in a small round of production as I am initiating battles. Example once I go 1a2a3a4a PvT I go back and spam up units in 4-5 gateways before returning to micro in the battle. I guess you can pretty much say I am forcing myself to macro even when there are other things occupying my attention.

- What is it about your own game that makes you confident? (Mechanics? Intelligence? APM? Macro? Your builds?) When in game, what is it about a specific opponent that makes you more confident? (Easy recon? History? Too few scv's ? Late pylons?)

I guess my good understanding of eco management and timings for when production of units are required + a good macro are the things I am the most confident about. Also I think my decision making in game is usually very good.

If there is history that can make me confident, but usually whenever I see my opponent make any kind of mistake it boosts my confidence that I am the better player and that can be a wide range of things, from having his cc\nex not producing workers early game to losing his scout to easily.

Whenever people are very good at keeping their scout alive and denying me scouting I usually start to lose confidence. Playing blind is never something I like to do. Especially PvZ I get paranoid when people open up pool\gas and I have 0 information about what they are doing.

- How do you motivate yourself to train, even when you are not in the mood to play (considering you absolutely have to due to a tourney or league coming up soon and you are really out of shape)?

I never really have trained for anything specifically like that so I never have to motivate myself. Its pretty simple if I dont feel like playing StarCraft I don`t even if I have a CW/NW or whatever. Really I have only practiced especially for things a few times, like I spent 4-5 hours testing out different ZvP builds with clanmates on Carthage before playing vs JF in SCL and I spent a couple of hours testing out different map specific builds before playing vs Idra in the same tourney.

ToT)Strafe(

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- You are behind in a very important game (for example a tourney final or qualification game). How do you come back? Is there something special you say to yourself, a thought you remind yourself of?

To be honest if you are behind there is not something you say to yourself. Most of the time you are so focused on playing your a-game that you don't have thoughts going around in your head whether you are behind or not. When I was playing important matches all I focused on was playing 'perfect'. Inflicting as much damage as I could and expanding properly to secure the game, until it was so obvious that I won or lost, only at that point I could realize that I'm ahead or behind. Sometimes though, you notice you aren't playing very well e.g. when you mess up micro'ing or you see your probes idling at your nexus, at that point you usually get a bit angry at yourself and you will refocus yourself to step up your game.

- What is the single most useful skill concerning your race one should definitely focus the most about?

The great thing about Protoss is macro'ing. With Protoss it's relatively easy to macro compared to other races. Therefore you have more time to focus on micro and attacking on multiple fronts during battles. You should really exploit this point by having pressure on your opponent, forcing him to make a mistake in his macro or micro. I also believe Protoss is more flexible at some points. For example if you are Terran and you lose an early push very badly, you often lost the game against Protoss. If you mess up your reaver drop and did zero damage, you can sometimes still win the game, even though you are behind.

- What is the single most useful overall skill one need in order to become a better Starcraft player?

This questions has probably been asked the most throughout the history of gaming. To be honest I think improvement cannot be attributed to a single skill. There are three requirements you must meet to improve: Devotion, Overall intelligence and open mindedness. Once you truly devote yourself to improving and go to extremes to do so, you will always see a big improvement. The length of this improvement has to do with how smart or clever you are in general. I strongly believe that a person who easily does well in school or is always good at games, because he is able to think quickly and rational will improve much quicker than a person who simply cannot understand that if you have 3 times 50% chance to win something, it's not a 150% to win it when you do it 3 times in a row. Last one is open mindedness, sometimes people are really smart, but they refuse to learn from others, for whatever reason. Sometimes they believe they are truly better or are just stubborn. The person who is really open to new things and is willing to go for it will again improve quicker than someone who sticks to the 'old' methods. Overall devotion is something you can influence the most, so that is probably the most important factor to improve.

- What do you think is the fastest way to improve in Starcraft? What is in your opinion the best way to train?

This is actually a fairly simple question. Watch replays over and over from a GOOD player and then try to copy it. This sounds lame, but it is true. At one point if you copy his strategies 300 times in a game and try to think why it worked or didn't work you will reach a point where you developed so much that you are seeing through the game. At one point everything will make sense in the game and once you reach that point you can think of your own strategies, counters and what not. But to begin with it's simply watch and copy. If you are really slow with the mouse it might help to go to missionred.com sometimes. It will help you become faster, it helped me when I was really slow as well.

- How do you maintain concentration during games?

When you are in love with Starcraft as much as I am concentration is really not a problem. I love the game through and through and what I love above all is to crush my opponent. So therefore, I am usually utterly focused when playing someone better. The game is so entertaining to me that I do not lose concentration until the game is over. There is not something I have to do to maintain my concentration other than turning music off and closing the door so nobody will enter the room while I'm playing. I believe that loving the game helps a lot, because when I play poker I really have to force myself every ten minutes to focus on the game. Poker is simply not very intriguing to me, whereas Starcraft really is.

- Do you have a special kind of ritual you do before/during games? Like, warming up before a game with a micromap or setting your hotkeys for your units in a specific manner? If yes, why did you start doing this and what is the reason for it?

My only ritual is to play a very strong player, before I play a serious match. I call this a warm up and the reasons are quite obvious. Sometimes in the first game you can be a bit slow etc. The reason I pick a better player is so that I really have to go to my max in order to play. This helps warming up a lot better than when you play against a weaker opponent whom you can beat while watching TV. I do have a standard set of hotkeys, but that's just a habit I guess. I started doing this from the very start when I asked a better player what his hotkeys were. I simply copied them and never let go. This is something that prevented me from getting better at one point though. For example my Hotkeys are 1-2-3 units and Nexus on 4. But I never let 4 go, therefore I sometimes only had 3 control groups. That's what I mean by not being stubborn, so you can improve faster. I'm guilty of it as well.

- Do you have a certain routine you are trying to keep up during the game? For example, first macro, then micro, then harass and then macro again?

The priority for me is probably always keeping the money as low as possible, by spending it wisely, while improving your economy. Harassing is a secondary objective during this time. At one point in the game there will always be the 'big clash' where armies battle it out against each other, at that point my focus completely switches to micro and the control of my big army whilst macro becomes a secondary objective. I feel though that nowadays the games have changed a bit and Macro remains the most important part throughout the entire game. The players have developed such styles, where they can macro so quickly that even though you might crush your opponents army, if you do not macro as fast as him, he might overtake you just 5 minutes later anyway.

- What is it about your own game that makes you confident? (Mechanics? Intelligence? APM? Macro? Your builds?)

I have very little to be confident about. My micro has always been so so, my apm is as low as it gets(120-150) and my macro was never perfect. What I truly believe that has been my edge all the time were my opening builds and my ability to counter my opponents perfectly. If I scout what they are doing I could always mix up the perfect unit combination to counter it quickly and perfectly. Furthermore I believe that when I get the edge in a game, I rarely let it go. When I'm ahead in a game I was very good on capitalizing that edge for example by taking an extra expansion or switching to Carriers to secure the game. My strongest point was probably realizing at what point you could exploit your edge.

When in game, what is it about a specific opponent that makes you more confident? (Easy recon? History? Too few scv's ? Late pylons?)

An opponent that lets himself scout easily makes it a lot easier to play against. Sometimes, for example when a Terran does a wall-in but still let's you see that he's building a CC right next to minerals, it gives you a much easier time to play against. You know perfectly what he is doing, so you can counter it perfectly. If an opponent for example puts some marines down the choke and doesn't let me see uphill, so I have no idea whether he is going for a Gundam push or a quick CC, life is a lot more difficult. At that point you have to take a middle way and you simply can't play optimal. Players that always play very obviously and/or never change strategies are so easy to abuse. There were tons of players who do the same strategy every game and nowadays it's even worse. It's so simple to win against these people. They just open the same, every single game. It really exposes them to cheese strats, which people should do more! If for example know that you will always make a quick CC before your second factory, I can simply build a robotics next to your main and make your life hell.

- How do you motivate yourself to train, even when you are not in the mood to play (considering you absolutely have to due to a tourney or league coming up soon and you are really out of shape)?

You should never motivate yourself to play I think. Starcraft is really just a game for fun. I was probably one of the people who took it more serious than 99% of the others, but I always enjoyed playing. There have been very few occasions where I forced myself to play more. The only time I can remember was the WCG 2004 where I wanted to take a shot to see how far I could get. One month before the WCG I played at least 10 games a day, with the last 2-3 games never being a lot of fun to me. I strongly suggest that everyone who wants to play Starcraft 2, does so for fun. Don't force yourself, because you want to become a pro. I mean it's good to play competitive and always try to improve, but as soon as you lose passion for the game, then let it rest a little. Being a pro is only fun when you can truly enjoy it.

- Anything else you would like to add concerning your own inner game?

Not much other than, try to be creative at one point when you think you have a good feel for the game. This makes the game a lot more fun!

Acknowledgements

Thanks to INcontrol, vGl-RaGe, ips.Zero, ESC.Kolll, Oystein and ToT)Strafe( for their submissions, especially given how little time they had.

Special thanks to:

- Captain Obvious for proofreading, general advice and putting up with my "horrible mixture of spoken and written English". I really appreciate it.

- AdamBanks, who gave me a really good model concerning the questions for the players - unfortunately, I wasn't able to fully apply it due to timepressure. Consider all the good questions his.

- Sabel, who helped me out with the images. SCHLECK SCHLECK!

- Waschito, who helped me a great deal with formatting the guide (at 4:00 am in the morning).

- SethGecko and St0ny, for general advice, help and stoically enduring my fits of madness.

- Everyone I forgot.

[Guide] Mindcontrol - Mental strategies for SC

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