Flexibility: Its role in taking you from Amateur to Pro in E-Sport

Flexibility is Key.

In the volatile environment of online combat, your usually finding yourself in different situations that require a great deal of flexibility to come out best. A continuous round in CS:GO is a process of observation, processing information and taking action. A thought process happening at a blistering pace. Those who come out best are the ones who are making the best on the fly decisions based on previous experience and analyzing the play as it unfolds.

In nature, the most efficient and flexible creatures survive to continue their gene. In business the most efficient and flexible businesses survive, adapting to trends and changes in the world such as legislation and consumer habits.

Gaming is no different. Your aim is to win, your opponent's goal is the same. Your path is to mold yourself like water around your opponent and flow to their weakness.

Those players and teams who are most flexible to changes and adapt best are the ones who prove most successful and most consistent. Remember that a large portion of a players success or skill is measured in their consistency and a key component to consistency is the ability to adapt to your opponents play style to come out on top.

You're playing a team who are using an unfamiliar strategy to you and in that moment it seems to be eating through your team with nothing you can do about it. Chances are your probably not defending in a manner that gives you the best chance. Weather your level of experience limits your possibilities to find an effective solution or you're not giving it the attention it deserves is up to you to decide.

Mediocre teams will take longer to react and adapt to unexpected plays. Therefore losing more rounds. Pro teams adapt quickly and effectively to whats happening around them. They're aware of whats unfolding because of effective communication and can therefore adapt.

The difference between a pro team and an amateur team is that a pro team not only recognizes when something isn't working but they are prepared to deal with it confidently and already have a solution to it. They understand the importance of flexibility and molding what they are doing to give them the best chance at success against what their opponents are doing.

Usually all that's required to change the pace of a game is to mix things up. Its up to you to understand what factors may need change. It might be your teams positioning on the map, it might be the level of aggressiveness or lack of that needs to be tweaked or considering the fact that what you're doing is being read like a book.

The most flexible team recognizes when they need to adapt before it becomes a problem.

Oliver "Huk_!!!!" Barrett

Momentum used in competition. Sending Singapore home.

Flashback: 1st place win at CGS pan-asia 2008 after losing final previous year 10-0.

The score is 3-6, opposing team winning and its half time. You've traveled across the globe to compete against the team who put you out of the final last year. Playing them again was a chance to show them what your really about. Nerves are running high as your team huddle up in an effort to talk over game plan for the remaining half and get everyone confident and fired up.

Times up and you're back in your seat. They only need to get 4 more rounds to send you home. The loser inside you starts trying to use logic to predict the outcome of the match. "They beat us last year and already have an advantage, they will probably get a few more rounds, we might draw at best". The loser-self doesn't start talking because your better self shuts it out, you're fully confident you're going to win and before the first round you're already visualizing the state of mind required, the type of player you need to be to pull off the winning plays.

What happens? You win the first round playing a fast strategy that catches them off guard. Our caller Scott "Boomser" Bednaski, a fantastic player, strategist and leader, predicts that a fast strategy on the first round gives you some advantages to work with. 

The other team is probably calming their nerves in the first round and we know their aim might be suffering from nerves. Keep in mind you're competing in Wuhan China in a stadium filled with hundreds of spectators. The other advantage we had to work with was that after we won that round, we knew that they would still be guessing as to what our style was on the offensive side. Keep the other team guessing, this causes them to make mistakes you can capitalize on. Generally when you win at a game at the top level, its always because the other team made more mistakes. 

Having this to work with and now having momentum on our side, we throw in a strategy that deceives the other team. Some miss communication on behalf of the other team is all it took to catch some of their defenders off guard and we were able to secure the round flawlessly. Making the half score 2-0 to us.

Having nearly evened up the score we decide to run a unique strategy designed to catch a team off guard early, then capitalize on any error the opposing team makes by utilizing teamwork, communication and on the fly calling. We used a series of smoke grenades and flash bangs to get someone behind enemy lines and remain completely hidden. Knowing this is completed, we systematically move into the next part of our strategy which is to fake another bombsite to draw their attention, and hopefully draw their players to that part of the map... running straight past our hidden player and having no idea hes there. In this instance, our hidden played was in their spawn and that's exactly where 3 of the other teams players have to pass through to attempt winning the round.

Smokes down, flashes going off, lots of foot steps and gun-fire. Presumably the microphones on the other team are going wild and what they saw was that we were taking that bombsite, completely oblivious of our master plan. Within 10 seconds of entering the site, we kill the two defenders of that bombsite and as the rest of the team rotates for back up. Needless to say our hidden player (me) :) took all of them down.

We continue to gain momentum. A feeling described as a snow ball continually building up speed and size. Ultimately force and power. The effect of a giant snowball racing downhill towards the other team starts eating their moral, confidence in themselves and their team mates and the whole energy of the team diminishes to the point where they have already accepted defeat and start making bad decisions more frequently.

We knew that some of their players were starting to become frustrated, disappointed and already considering the possibility of failure.

The score is even now at 6-6. We run one of our default strategies that just relies on passively approaching the map and via strong communication and team work figuring out the best plan of attack. On this occasion we knew we'd be able to swing the round in our favor.

As it happens, we crushed the other team. In spirit and by score, half-time score was 9-0 to us. We came back from 3-6 down looking at a flight home, to a 12-6 victory. We managed to overcome our fears of losing, we didn't accept the possibility of losing and only envisioned the victory at the end. We couldn't have asked for a better result.

What helped swing our momentum in our favor was our ceaseless cheering and support for each other and a loud cry after every round. Not only does this annoy the other team when your losing round after round. It crushes their will to put up a game changing fight.

If you found this helpful showing other team mates and gamer friends is hugely appreciated.

Huk_!!!!

Create a game winning mindset for your long term success in competitive E-Sport

Game winning Mindset

Key factors in long term improvement focused mindset for competitive gaming.

Lets take a look at how important your mindset is in E-Sports. A good comparison would be sport. Professional athletes such as American football players are known for their athletic ability and its an environment where only the tough survive. Its also said that a teams chance of victory is 70% mental and 30% physical.

Now take a look at what is being said here. In a game where the fastest, strongest and skilled players meet on the field. 70% of their success is based on the teams mindset during the game.

What do you think those numbers are in E-Sports? I would be safe in saying, at the highest level of E-Sports the mental aspect of the game makes up for over 80% of your success. I say this because “Anyone can learn to aim, but not everyone can master the game”. Aim is physical and based on muscle memory whereas building a strong mental approach to the game takes years and is usually dependant on things such as individual personality, attitude, experience and the teams chemistry. We'll touch on these subjects later.

So I guess the question people are asking is, “What is the best mindset to take on board if you're serious about E-Sports?”

I like to let people figure out answers themselves. If I were to tell someone directly, they may not be ready for the answer or able to understand the concept. What ill do is continue so that you can figure it out for yourself. If you are ready, the game winning mindset will leap out of the page.

We can learn a lot about people and about where they are going in life by the things they say. Specifically the words they use. We can also draw conclusions about where they are headed in E-Sports based on attitudes and words they use. I had been around the Australian Counter-Strike: Source community for over 4 years and have had many mixed experiences speaking with different people.

It would be wrong to say I judged potential team mates on their skill alone. I judged peoples playing ability by their attitude as that is a key factor in where they would end up 2 years from now. This is important to factor in when deciding on team mates for a new team as well as making a choice about which team to join.

Lets break down some of the negatives of what people say and put them into categories.

The Excusers, The Justifiers, The Blamers, The Whingers.

Do those words remind you of anyone you know?

What is one thing that all of these attitudes have in common? They all give away their personal power to make a positive influence on the situation. They are all on the effect side of the equation, rather than the cause side. If you're on the cause side of the equation ie “I caused this situation, which means I can fix it”, you have a great sense of power as you've assumed complete responsibility for what has happened and that means you can now take steps to change something so this situation works out for your teams benefit next time.

Lets look at this example. Im going to be very general here as this concept applies across all first person shooter games. You're on a team with 2 remaining team mates against 1 on the opposing team. You lose the round because both of you made a simple mistake. For arguments sake, lets say you forgot about one of the fundamental rules of your particular game and that cost you your life. Someone on the effect side of the equation will be defensive about it to try and shift blame to someone other than themselves to save face. “I only rushed him because YOU did X”. That's completely disregarding his sequence of choices leading up to that situation and blaming someone else.

In the gaming world, I’ve found the most effective tool for improvement is to assume responsibility for everything in some way or another. Lets say a mistake has been made, rather than justifying what you did to someone else. With a reason that's going to be forgotten about tomorrow. Look within yourself and ask yourself some quality questions. Your brain is amazing at finding answers if you ask the right questions.

This revelation helped me go from a nationwide player to a world class player. When I died, when we lost a round or when we encountered a temporary defeat ( I don't use the word failure as temporary defeat is more appropriate ). I would ask myself a series of questions such as, “What could I have done differently?”, “Did I give away my position to make them concious I was there at that time?”, “Could I have approached the situation with a different level of aggressiveness, maybe more passively and cautious or maybe I was too slow?”. I'm sure you can understand where we're going with these questions. Next time your in a game, put emotion aside and start asking yourself some quality questions when you make a mistake. Be honest to yourself, you will be amazed at how quickly you find answers that will improve your overall success in the long term. Remember this reflection process is only effective if you take on board the conclusions that you draw and put them into your game style.

Happy Fragging

E-Sports success topics

Whats to be expected in the coming weeks.

Over the years of being a undeniable hardcore gamer. Set aside the countless packets of 2 minute noodles, late nights and social sacrifice there were in fact many joys of reaching my goals as a gamer. Number one was the adrenaline of actually competing at an international level, i loved it an can safely say i'm an adrenaline junkie and that was my fix. Probably a lot less injury prone than skating or crocodile wrestling. 

The added benefits was the opportunity to travel, be paid a salary as a gamer and meet some amazing people. The experiences I encountered in my career are some of the richest and unique memories I've ever had.

With that being said, over 5 years of high level competition and determination, always striving to find new ways to improve and get ahead I may have in fact learnt a few things that i'm willing to share with everyone.

So far is a list of topics ill be covering over the coming weeks. Hopefully you'll enjoy and gain something from reading them.

Individual Mindset: Taking charge in E-Sport.

• Mentality and Momentum, The most powerful tools to success in E-Sport.
• Framing for #1: Re framing is key in E-Sports
• Overcoming Fears and breaking down limiting beliefs
• Your emotions will play tricks on you
• Overcoming conflicts and time wasting arguments
• Time Management: Make the most out of your limited practice time.
• Staying Focused: E-Sport goals are long term.
• Allocating Time: Deciding what to practice and when can make a huge difference to your overall success.
• Be the clutch player you want to be by beating nerves
• Flexibility is Key

Communication Models for a team

• Distinctions and definitions
• - The One Mind Team
• - Everyone on the same wavelength
• How to apply this to your practice schedule
• How to practice communication

Strategy in E-Sports

• Ideas, testing, planning, practice and execution.
• Deception is a key factor in effective strategy
• The highest probable victory method
• Like clockwork

The Basics of being a team in an online E-Sports environment.  

E-Sports guide launched.

Your source of E-Sports material aimed at your success.

Who am I and why am i giving you advice on gaming?

Today is a great day for E-Sports and a day that marks taking action and following through on something I've been wanting to do for some time. I'm picking up where I've left off on a project I started over a year ago but never actually launched.  I've made it my mission to compile a foundation of knowledge dedicated to ensuring any aspiring gamer the best chance at success.

For you my friend, this means you will be getting insights into the E-Sports world from someone who has gone from rock bottom scrub to winning national titles in less than 2 years and coming 1^st and runner-up at 2 international E-Sports events for my chosen game. To say the least, I've been there and done that.

To start with, an introduction would be appropriate. So my name is Oliver Johnson-Barrett, my in game alias was Huk_!!!!. I say was because I have officially retired from competitive gaming in the past year or so. Before you ask, i'm not the NA SC2 player Huk.

I used to play Counter-Strike: Source competitively, fiercely competitively to say the least. It was my obsession for a solid 4 years. I would clock over 50 hours a week before a tournament. By no means is this a recommendation to practice this much, I was just really bored. I have suffered from over-use injuries and subsequently burnt out and that's part of the reason I have retired from professional video gaming.

What you can expect to see on this site is a compilation of articles that are helpful to an aspiring gamer. The content is not game specific. This means that if you're in COD, BF series or any other fps or team game, you will still benefit from the content on this site.

You might be asking yourself, "How can someone who's only played CSS give advice to people playing other games?". To best answer that question, ill use another example. Lets say you were just getting interested in martial arts, you have spent the last 9 months training in kick boxing and you'd like to start competing. Do you think, that if you met a world class boxer. He could teach you something about competing in a Kick Boxing tournament? Yes, he would be able to share valuable information.

The same goes for E-Sports. There are universal concepts and principles that are constant and relevant to different genres and different games. For example, lets briefly touch on communication.

If a man comes from space and lands on this earth knowing no one. His fate would be eternally dependent on his ability to communicate with other humans. This phrase should indicate to you the importance of effective communication in life and also in team E-Sports.

To say the least, I'm extremely excited about this project and I hope to provide the most helpful and quality content for you, your friends, your dog and my reading audience.