Indian ACID attack at World Cyber Games

It takes more than guts to declare war on crack commando teams from Russia, China and the US. It takes a cybercafe.
ACID (Accelerated Caustic Intensity Defined), the five-member team representing India (Karan Kapur, Lalit Nangia, Deepak Nangia, Rahul Rohira and Jenil Patel ) in the ‘Counter Strike’ team event in the Third World Cyber Games (WCG) in Korea (beginning on October 12), has been practicing hard at the cybercafe owned by the captain, Rohira.Their goal is top honours at Seoul, with the winning team taking home a cool $ 60,000. ACID won the Indian leg of the WCG on September 14.
And they’ve begun work towards their goal on a war footing. Says Rohira (19), a student of TYBCom at H R College, “We’ll watch demos of top clans on the Net. Before the WCG, we plan to practice in Pune against The Unholy Alliance (TUA) team, who are our good friends. There are only a few days to go and we have to prepare for our exams in September-end too. In October, there’s the Diwali vacation, and we can bunk a few lectures. The fifth team member, Kapur, will have to take leave from Cathedral College, where he’s in the Std XI.�
They’re all from different cyberclans, and the captain was originally from TUA, which represented India the first two times, and were the runner-up this year. The only person from the original ACID clan is Kapur. Being students, they have to juggle studies with practice. Also the fact that two members are from Pune — Malik and Nangia — means they have to manage their schedules to and practice.
Rohira concedes that they’ll be up against stiff competition, teams which are sponsored and “paid to play for over eight hours a day.� Adds Patel (20), a TYBA student in Ritambara College, Versova (W), “We’re waiting for WCG groups to be finalised, to find out who our opponents are. We’ll watch demos of their games. Some of the competition includes guys from Russia, China and the US, who’ve been playing the game for five years, while we’ve been playing it since one-and-a-half years.�
Says Kapur (16), “My games are on weekends, while my teammates play throughout the week. We met during tournaments and decided team up. We know how impossible it is to even get close to the competition. What we can do is see their matches, and learn from them. Counter Strike depends on strategies. The game comprises a terrorist team v/s a counter-terrorist team. Each team plays terrorist and counter-terrorist in different rounds. You require a specialist sniper or assault person but one guy can’t win the round, it’s teamwork.�