Los Angeles, California - Mark Cheben continues his series of interviews from the CGS Qualifier at The Bridge in L.A. with Alex "chibsquad" Garfield, owner/manager of Team EG and CSPromod leader. Alex discusses what everyone wants to hear, cspromod.

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How have you guys practiced for this event? You came in with a very close match with zEx, getting a tie, how are you looking for the double elimination phase of this tournament and what did you learn about your team in this group stage and how are you going to help them overcome the zEx match and what prevented them from winning?

I think that they've played pretty well so far. There have been a couple of teams; JMC, United 5, zEx and us that had a problem getting adjusted to Source as much teams like 3D and compLexity did and as quickly as they did largely because we have been playing two games for awhile, so for the past couple of weeks the guys have finally been playing Source non-stop and that has helped a lot. As far as the result of the match I'm really not disappointed with it at all I think zEx has been showing in the online qualifiers that they're a very good Source team now. I think they substituted one of their original players with Deppy who is a traditional Source player and I think that is a formula that has worked for a couple of teams. We need to catch up more quickly, Pandemic being the other notable one they bring in one Source player helped their guys catch up more quickly it works out well for them. I think that has been the result for both of them.

CGS format really creates an any given Sunday kind of environment. I think it is a very entertaining format as much as its criticized. So, 9-9 matches against a team like zEx, really a lot of things are just going to come down to turns of fate. There were a couple of rounds we should have had, I think we've learned good lessons just in terms of communication with each other in 1 vs x and things like that. I have no problem with our turnout in our group play and I love zEx, I love those guys, I was happy for a tie with them.

How was it like playing against a former member of EG in da bears in such a high stake match?

Loved it, love Erik, love Charlie, those are really great guys and I don't think he has any bad feelings towards us at all. I saw him for the first time in a couple of months when I was coming into the movie theatre last night and he gave me a big hug, maybe a little uncomfortable actually, but that's how it always is with Erik. I reciprocated with a mini massage before the match until he once again made me a little uncomfortable again.

Your teams roster for awhile there, you added Ian, Grt, shaGuar and tr1p, now you have sort of gelled these five guys, what's the possibility looking for a blackpanther return, what's going to happen to your line-up? I remember Rob saying he wanted to come back for CGS, well you got five guys which are basically playing very well together and there is definitely lots of chemistry there. What are you going to make decision wise, is it possible of seeing a blackpanther return, who's the odd man out?

There's definitely a possibility of seeing Rob return. I mean sometimes you get press releases where it's like someone is going inactive and you never hear from them again. That really wasn't what we were trying to do, I wasn't BS'ing anyone when I was saying Rob was going inactive. The plan all along was to have Rob come back at some point and I haven't made any decisions in terms of who he would replace or if we would go to a six man rotation. Of course CGS eligibility has a factor in that and whether they will allow a six man rotation or not, seems like their official stance is no. I try to take care of all my guys, but I think people can expect Rob to return. He's a really good player and a really good Source player too, his skills transition very well over to Source back in 2005 when we went to Singapore. He was one of the best players and he adapted more easily to the game than I think Matt Stevenson or Pasha Lari did. His style of recoil control, he's a rifle player, is really conducive to the way Source players tend to control their recoil so he was wreaking havoc on the TitaNs in Singapore, I think he aced them a couple times.

Talking about your WCG performance, how has playing Source at that stage granted it was two years ago almost, has that stayed with Pasha, Stevenson, blackpanther and shaGuar?

To be honest, I think maybe from the beginning of our Source play it might have made a difference in terms of how they felt about it, but I really don't think it makes much of a difference it was awhile ago. When I look back at that WCG it was pretty much us versus 3D, there were a lot of top European teams that didn't bother attending. It was us vs. 3D in a battle people really getting used to this new game and what we could do with it. 3D sort of kept playing and went to Everlan and win at Everlan. I don't think it's been that much of a huge benefit for us and what you say is a lot of players on 3D and coL and other top teams in the continent just put in a lot of work and got used to the game so I don't think it gave us any sort of edge.

Looking back on it, playing 1.6 and Source at the same time, was it a mistake or a good move?

As far as my stance as the leader of the organization, absolutely a good move. I will readily admit that it made us duller in both games, it is hard to play two games at once. People aren't kidding when they say playing Source makes you a little bit rusty at 1.6. My stance on Source game play and the research I have done is far from private. So, it is no surprise that I would say that playing both games at once hinders your ability for one of them or maybe both of them. I don't think it was a mistake though, obviously we would have liked to have some better results in both games. We played a lot of matches for our fans, twice as many games, twice as many leagues. It's good coverage and I hope our fans appreciation that and hopefully they will appreciate better results in Source now that we play Source all the time.

Does the exhaustion factor come in to play? Were the guys playing so much Counter-Strike, both 1.6 and Source, that they're kind of burned out right now? Or has this series of qualifiers given them a second wind?

I think that it's really just a matter of mechanics and essentially playing two games that are different in many ways will undoubtedly have an effect on both games and the players ability in both. As far as time allocation goes, we didn't step up our practice from four to eight hours a day because we were playing two games. I wouldn't say they were exhausted it's just simply two hours of each per day or it was really just one day of 1.6 and one day of Source because of a match. Whatever the scheduling was, you split your time allocation you won't get the results you want. So when you go full allocation to one game you get better results, that's how I feel about it.