Many players have jumped ship to be apart of the Championship Gaming Series since their inception. Ben Hui was one of those players and he had his mind set on becoming a professional and salaried player. Recently he has been playing 1.6 for the #1 team X3O in CEVO Professional who are going into playoffs in a few weeks. GotFrag had a chance to speak with Hui to discuss some of the finer points and his experience from CGS up to now.

The results from the Season 1 Draft came as to a shock for many and even the managers. Can you give a brief history of your team [United 5] and their journey towards becoming a CGS team?

We started off pretty bad in source for the first two months, guess you can say it was our time frame to adjust and learn every nitch of the game. At our first source tournament after about two months about playing, we placed pretty decently, I think 4th or 5th. After that we just hit a good stretch and started to play confident, (also helped that we got those beast u5 shuttles :D) everyone had adjusted to the game and were peaking. Heading into the combine, we were one of the hottest teams, winning 2 qualifiers and a local lan I believe. Before the draft, we were told by a few GM's that we were high on their radar. During the combine, we were pretty much guranteed a spot by a GM until some shady events took place that I will not mention.

After you guys weren't selected, I'm sure that gave you a lot of hope to progress and wait for the next season to come around. What did you decide to do after the draft?

After the draft, the team decided to take a break in which we never came back from. I just took a few months off to get away from the game and relax. We had probably the craziest practice schedule heading into the draft. Definitely one of the hungriest and hardest working teams. I put my focus on school and hitting the gym regularly, CS tends to make a person lazy, but I was usually good at keeping my routine :D

Being a former 1.6 player and with your success with many famous teams such as NetFragz and United 5, coming back must not of been a hard decision. Was it easier to make the transition back to 1.6 for you or did it take a bit more effort?

I just started pugging for fun with people I knew before, and not too long after, I had that itch to get back into competitive 1.6.

We all know there is still much controversy on the two games (CS & CS:S) to this day. After experiencing both Counter-Strike 1.6 and Counter-Strike Source in their own environment and tournament style, which one would you say is more comfortable to you?

Depends on what you're asking for, if you want fast paced 15 minute matches then CGS is what you will lean towards. On a day where I'm impatient I'd prefer that :P. However, I will usually always prefer the old 1.6 style because it makes the pistol/gun rounds and money management that much more important. The CGS style is random because you basically have a gun for all nine rounds, and the OT rule, which is only one round, will always favor the dominant side of the map. This rule-set tends to make results much more random. Although, I did like one of the events that extended the MR to 12, which made the rule of $16k a bit less random; if you lost a few rounds, you would have to save two maybe three rounds, which forces you to manage your money better.

Less than a month ago, X3O took second in the 2008 X3O Championship Series qualifier to Evil Geniuses. With the two of you having so much history in the past, what will need to be done different against them the next time around?

I'll leave it for mr ediz 'goodfornothing' to solve that, but he really is good for nothing so we'll see....

As you know, the Counter-Strike 1.6 scene is at its lowest and it's hard to find more local tournaments around the area as well as worldwide. Do you think the GotFrag Revival Tournament will help get more players interested? What else could help get the 1.6 community back on its feet?

The revival tournament is a good idea, but in the end it is online. The only real way to bring back 1.6 is larger tournaments and more local lans. There are a few lans coming up this summer, which is usually the best time for 1.6 anyways, so we'll see what happens.

Recently you won the iZ3D $2,500 iGames event in California with impulsive and PaTyoJoN against MoB Gaming. It's been back and forth between you two teams as you know, both online and on LAN. Do you feel you have a better knowledge of the players and how they play now since you've had the chance to both lose and defeat them?

I only played in one match against them in CEVO, but I've played against their players with other teams for a while, so there wasn't anything new from playing them this past weekend.

X3O has secured another #1 seed going into playoffs for a third consecutive season. With Evil Geniuses beginning to lose their groove and your history against MoB who are trailing very close, how good do you believe your chances are in the playoffs?

As long as we continue to practice and play well during the playoffs, I believe we will do very well. I'd be lying if I said I didn't expect anything other than first, since that's the reason why anyone plays CS.