The first ever Championship Gaming Invitational was filmed last month on Treasure Island in the San Francisco Bay area. Contestants duked it out in Counter-Strike 1.6, Battlefield 2, Halo 2, Project Gotham Racing 3 and Dead or Alive 4. You can check out all the action on DIRECTV channel 101 on September 8 through 10. In the meantime, we wrangled up some of the event's competitors to talk to us about what the life of a pro-gamer is like and what they think it takes to make it into the big leagues.



GameSpy: How did you assemble the team?

John Ware: The team for CGI was tough for me to select. I had the difficult decision of trying to judge personal talent vs. seniority for eligibility to be selected for this event. In the end I put a team together that would satisfy both parties, and while we may not have sent the best team possibly skill wise, the team we sent was very effective and had played enough with each other to leave me confident in our ability to compete. Fortunately it was a matter of tactics, and not a matter of skill that decided our run to second place.

GameSpy: What does your team do better than any other team?

Ware: When bizarre things happen in the middle of a match we are typically really good at adjusting in the heat of the moment. We've spent a lot of time in the past preparing for matches with on-the-fly things, so we are usually very adept at modifying and changing gears last second.

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GameSpy: How often should a team practice together per week?

Ware: Our schedule runs Sunday-Thursday at least four hours a night, and often more time then that. We try to take Friday and Saturday off but that doesn't always happen; again, flexibility is pretty vital to our team's success.

GameSpy: What obstacles/challenges has your team faced?

Ware: We've had problems with some personality conflicts in our team. Overcoming people that have clashes with each other's personalities can be very difficult. We've also had large turnovers of people in the past due to real life. It has been difficult until recently to keep a solid base of people loyal to the team. Fortunately, we have guys that are working up to their first year of activity with the team and are doing very well and staying with us.

GameSpy: Who is your strongest player?

Ware: I'd have to say that Matthew "Jerunk" Reid is our most flexible and talented player. He really pulled through for us at CGI in the chopper devastating Code 7's team. He's a really good infantry player as well and has always been one of our most flexible players.

GameSpy: Does age have anything to do with how good a gamer is?

Ware: On average younger gamers make better players, but not necessarily better teammates. Each person is different in their own way, but I'd say the stereotype would be that younger players have more time to play and are usually more talented, but older players better understand the value of teamwork and intelligent game play.

GameSpy: Who would you say your biggest competitor is?

Ware: 20ID is hands down our biggest rival in Battlefield 2. We've been competing against 20ID for the past four years in all the Battlefield series games and it's always been a lot of fun playing them. On average, they have usually managed to pull the win, but we have surprised them a few times.