Name: Sam Gawn
Alias: RattlesnK
Age: 19
Location: East Preston, West Sussex, UK
Franchise: Birmingham Salvo
Past Teams: goldbrick, Dignitas


Hey RattlesnK, please tell us a little about yourself, and your gaming history.

Hey, well my name is Sam Gawn and I live next to the beach in a small village called East Preston in the UK. In terms of my gaming history, I first started out playing in my own team goldbrick, where my success first started. I attended WCG UK and managed to cause an upset by defeating the 4kings mix team which at the time was really impressive. After that I got my big break by joining Team-Dignitas, which allowed me to travel to the more prestigious tournaments.

I was in Dignitas for around a year and became the number #1 ranked team in the UK, knocking the 4kings off their pedestal for the first time in over five years. At this point I made the decision to go for the CGS and made the switch over to source and went into the combine with three former 4kings players in Mangiacapra, Harriman and Ady and my Dignitas team mate pt. At the combine we managed to win the final in two maps and became a CGS franchise team in the Birmingham Salvo who I’m currently playing for.


When did you arrive in Los Angeles and what were your first impressions? What have you been doing since you arrived?

We landed at around 2pm and were welcomed by some of the CGS staff who drove us to the Oakwood apartments where we're staying. So far it's being a great experience and I’m loving every minute of it.

Since we arrived I've visited Venice beach, gone shopping along the Santa Monica Promenade on third street and drove a 150 speed boat around Marina del Rey & Venice beach. At the weekend we’re hoping to get some time off practicing to go to Universal Studios and spend some time in Hollywood visiting the sites.


What do your family and friends think about you being in LA? Are they supportive of your professional gaming career?

They all think its really cool that I'm getting to visit such a great place like LA, their sarcastic remarks about it not being a true job shows the opportunity I’ve been given and their all really jealous. But yea, on the whole my friends and family especially take an interest in my gaming career and they all want to learn more about the CGS and can't wait for it to be released on Sky TV.


How have you been preparing for the CGS World Finals?

The main preparation for us before we got out to LA was through online practice, generally we would play Sunday to Thursday for a few hours a night which we were doing before the combine and have continued to do so ever since we came back from the combine. In the last few weeks before we headed out we played a lot more and even managed to get a bootcamp in against the London Mint when we attended Multiplay which has really helped us dissolve all of the problems we had when we were playing online like our communication. Now that we've got out to LA we’re practicing around six hours a day to keep our game up and make sure we're ready for our first franchise game against Rio Sinistro.