9th August 2008 – Day 2 of i34

9:55am – Arrived to the hall after having a mess about with the taxi and a guy said we could walk the 5 mile trip in 5 minutes if we took a “Short cut” through “the woods” if you ask me, he wanted to rape me and maybe Sammy but we all know I am such a beautiful guy with a heavenly body =D Anyway, we luckily bumped into a postman who said that guy was being ridiculous and no such place existed and he kindly gave us a taxi number which came got us a few minutes later. 

11:00am – Finally sat down, all set up and ready to get under way, I was beginning to feel the nerves for my matches that started at 1pm. I only had an idea of who I was playing and I was prepared as much as I could be after my red ring incident. I was mainly worried about facing James again who I met yesterday! But that’s the excitement about it. 

12:30pm – After hanging around at the Qpad stand with Sorcerer for a while and getting schooled in CSS buy a player by the name of X, he was pretty cool =D I got like 10-6 and 10-4 against him 

1:00pm – Went to find out when the VF5 (virtua fighter 5) was going to start but sadly, yet again it had been delayed, so I was just about to go in for some more practice but as I walked past the Coolermaster stand I saw a crowd gathering and thought I would have a butchers. 

Lucky was on my side, they threw out some rockets with numbers attached, you had to match the number to a prize and me and sammy got number 35 which was 2x 2 Gig of DDR3 ram sticks =D! Loving It! Thanks Coolermaster 

2:00pm – I went back to find out about my VF5 games…. Oh what a surprise, 3pm…come back then, sorry mate.  

2:10pm – Went back, played some world of warcraft, went and told Flip and Adz what was going on. 

2:30pm – Saw Sean aka 4Kings Madspunk (1.6 player for those who don’t know) had a good chat and got one of them famous BanKs and friends pose type pictures. IG6 soon ftw, he said October maybe. 

Me and 4Kings Madspunk 

3:00pm – Back again, waited around 30 more minutes so now its…. 

3:30pm – YAY! =D It begins, ok, so I sat down and went against SCUM who I had not seen before, he looked rather worried and annoying that he got put against me first as he said to the admin “Why am I against him, come on!”

So then we got into the game, sadly we didn’t film this one but we got the others, anyway, I started well, landing all my hits, giving him the “San Dan Ura Geri” as its called but its just three punches followed by a round kick to knock them to the ground, I then got in a “Shutou” while he was on the floor, it hit just before he stood up and this left him in a very bad shape, he then got a low kick in on me but I continued to defend and took the rest of the rounds.

This guy was good but honestly his defence, well it didn’t really exist, so I kept with basic moves and nothing amazing special, so I suppressed my skill for the guys who were watching me to try make them slip up when playing me. This worked well as I won all 9 rounds 8-1. So first game won.

Now I will make this clear I was told its single elimination, meaning I was through and I have the film of Rayne, one of the best around, vs R2K from Dignitas who is an amazing player aswell, where R2K didn’t even get one of the rounds off R2K, with R2K playing me earlier and giving me a good beating this shook me a bit, but I got my game face back on. 

Ok so that’s so far

BanKs 8 – 1 SCUM

Rayne 9 – 0 R2K 

So me and Rayne are through but then some other guy turned up to play, which was not arranged, his name was Elliot, a 14 year old boy who came with his dad for the fun of it, I was then told I had to play a second match, which is unfair but me being me I wanted to prove I can overcome it all and take the win, even though I knew nothing about Elliot and he could of taken me out of the tournament. 

We have the film that we will upload at the end of this but basically Elliot was a very talented player, I ended up winning 6-3. Which was a very good score and he played a strong game.

So this leaves it at

BanKs 8 – 1 ….

Rayne 9 – 0 R2K

BanKs 6 – 3 Elliot 

Me and Dignitas R2K

I congratulated Elliot on a very good fight and told him that with his age if he really wanted to get into this stuff he could do some good things, all he had to do was put in the practice, he seemed very happy and not phased at all by the loss, which is a great sign for any player, maybe we will see him on CGS or another WCG event in the years to go, some Elliot if your reading this, good luck, you were a strong opponent. 

Now it hits me….”ermm Have I qualified” I ask the official nervously, he replied “yes, it’s only you and Rayne left in it, for the finals held tomorrow at 2:30 on the main stage” 

I was extremely happy and picked my beautiful Sammystar up, spun her around and soaked up the glory, even though I had not yet won, it felt as good. 

5:00pm – ok, I have told Flip, Adz, everyone, they could see the joy in my eyes, victory was in my finger tips BUT I had forgot about Rayne, a super skilled player, very fast, reads you like a book, it started to hit me, I was getting worried so I went onto the VF5 Machines to go over some moves, studied the command list and what I can do against him. 

I never been so worried about a game before, I have played many important CS matches before but that’s 5 of us, VF5 its all on me, If I fail, I have let down infused and everyone around us, clearly infused want a winner, not a loser, so I had to do this. 

I was letting my paranoia get to me. 

6:00pm – I hopped onto the COD4 stage at Qpad, baring in mind I have never played this game before, I managed to defeat 6 opponents in a row and find myself on the invite Qpad stand for COD4…rather crazy If I think about it, I just aim, click, shoot =D! BOOM. 

7:00pm – ok I am signing off here now, I have been getting really nervous and paranoid about tomorrow and going to do some hardcore practice with R2K in the morning before the finals, hopefully I can bring it back for infused, if not well I go back to being BanKs.

Cya tomorrow all! Thanks for reading.  Id also like to thank the management team, our sponsored: Qpad / Multiplay / Plantronics /

Me doing the bull riding lol =D