Interview with Kubayz: At the end we managed to convince the bouncer

 Hi Kubayz, few weeks ago you showed up on ESWC 2014 – how do you assess the tournament after this time?
Hello Pospi. I have only the best memories from ESWC. It was even better than last year. I am satisfied with the result which also is confirmed by the broken gamepad, but I enjoyed all the matches for 100%. Great group of people gathered this year in Paris. I know many of them for a long time and I am glad that I could see them again. Of course I am not counting Toni, Hakki and Tween – without them it wouldn’t be ESWC. 

 What do you think of the final ranking and performance of your Slovak co-drivers?
I will start with the stage. First and second place is no surprise. Most people guessed it before the tournament. But this year CarlJ didn’t have it as easy as last year. Tween was holding onto him like a tick but then CarlJ drive in a big style and even Marek wasn’t able to hold on. Anyway the silver medal was an amazing performance for Tween and I hope that he will finally defeat CarlJ next year. The bronze medal went to the sweetheart of the domestic audience YoYo and Spam was fourth. These two deserved to get to the finals but it was quite tight and other players could easily take their place. CarlJ and Tween were clearly a lot better. Hakki wasn’t lucky this year, hard to say why. Already the Time Attack didn’t finish as planned and poor form was with him till the end. When I think of how much he gave it he deserved a much better result. Shit happens.

  How does it feel to be in Paris at a game festival like this? Can you compare it with some Czech fairs?
I don’t think it is possible to describe it. It is amazing and I especially like that everybody there likes to do what you do and you have always something to talk about. The atmosphere at the festival is amazing, I can’t really think about anything negative. Honestly? To compare Czech fairs with it is absolutely impossible in any aspect, unfortunately. Funny thing is that I knew more people on ESWC than on this year’s Czech Championship.

 Did you go to the ESWC party? How was it?
Of course we couldn’t miss the after party. We went there with the majority of TM players by subway. We had a really good time. But Hakki and I got to the club about one and quarter hour later than the rest because the two-meter-tall chocolate bear who worked there as a bouncer saw us drinking our own alcohol even though we stood more than 7 meters away from the entrance. As soon as he saw us he came and without a word (not counting the “no no”), took the bottle from Hakki´s hand and threw it to the bin. So we thought OK and went in with the rest. But he didn’t want to let us in. He said that we were too drunk and he got maybe a little more angry when I said “Call me your boss” to which he replied that he is the boss. So for over an hour we stood outside to “sober up” but after we “managed” to do so, another bouncer said that if Hakki breathes more than 0,25 on the alcohol tester that we cannot get in anyway. It was not surprising that it was a little bit more than that and at the moment we seriously thought that we won’t be able to get inside at all. Finally we managed to convince the bouncer but it was close enough. The actual party was great, Tween started it big and we just had to keep up. At the end it was me and Hakki who stood last from the TM group which was our challenge.

 Would you like to be on the next ESWC? Do you think you could threaten some favourite by then, or you don’t have such ambitions?
I decided to go to the next ESWC either as a player of as a spectator. Of course I would prefer the first option but it will depend on how much time I have. I honestly think that I am not good enough to fight for medals, but my performance is better and better each year so who knows how good I will be next year. I still have motivation.

 What about other tournaments? Where are you going to go and where can we see you?
Given that there won’t be any LANs it will be likely ESWC. I was thinking about Gamers Assembly but it depends on many factors – the most important one is time again. I would like to go, we´ll see…

 What do you think about the progress of TrackMania 2 as a pro-gaming title? Does it have a chance to move up? Does it keep the same level?
Progress of TrackMania? I think it is at the same level for a quite a few years and I certainly don’t see any progress for the future either. There are basically two important tournaments for the entire year (ESWC and GA) others are just smaller ones but lately there are no events at all if I don’t count the accompanying tournament at The Gathering in Norway, which is attended at most by 3 good players. Now ESL newly introduced the Go4TM for 150 euros monthly, but honestly I don’t think it will last long at least due to the small number of players.

I talked to Hylis – the creator of TM at the ESWC and he said that he plans to put more effort in TM in the future and elevate the game to the e-sport level. So we will see… It would be great if the game had more international events all over the Europe but I don’t think it would improve the situation a lot. I was quite sad that it was just an accompanying tournament on this year’s Czech Championship. We all know that impartial spectators at the event enjoy racing much more than in my opinion boring card games. It’s a matter of opinion but our game deserves a bit more. And because I wrote so much about it I want to mention also that at the beginning of the next year will start a team true talent cup which sounds very interesting and if we have time we will definitely take part in it. It depends on the format used (for us would be ideal 3v3, 4v4 up, because our team doesn’t have more active players).

 This was my last question. Thank you for the interview, the conclusion is yours.
I thank you for the interview too. I would like to thank the whole eSuba that they got me DELL laptop for training before the ESWC and that they arranged a bootcamp in Nest for Hakki and me (which was by the way an amazing experience – thank you very muchjump) and for the overall support at ESWC.