The StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty tournament is hosted by GomTV and Blizzard Entertainment. The tournament features two leagues, Code S (major) and Code A (minor). To make his mark, Grubby will have to succeed in the upcoming Code A qualifiers in South Korea.
It’s been a challenging year so far for Grubby, who went solo back in April. This Dutch professional PC  gamer became a legend while competing in the real-time strategy (RTS) game Warcraft III (WC3) and Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne. His  worldwide recognition in the area of eSports includes six world championships, over a hundred other tournament wins, awards for best player and player of the year in eSports and inclusion in the World Cyber Games Hall of Fame. His winnings at the young age of 25, total more than $225,000 and now he’s got a great sponsorship deal from SteelSeries. Unfortunately, he hasn’t reached the top of the rankings in StarCraft 2, but Grubby believes that his current situation is an adjustment period as he switches from Warcraft 3 to now concentrating fully on Starcraft 2.
Arab News spoke with Grubby by phone on Saturday last week, hours before he flew off to South Korea.  He said that once he recovered from jet lag, he’d be practicing for three weeks before the tournament. Grubby is extremely popular in Asia, and South Korea has been an eSports magnet ever since the year 2000 when the first World Cyber Games were held in Seoul. Grubby believes that eSports is still quite young as a recreation concept but its future is extremely bright.
“eSports has changed so much in recent years.” Grubby commented. “The passion and the number of gamers all over the world makes eSports an almost unstoppable force. eSports competitions are the culmination of the desires of gamers — both young and older. There’s also a growing demand to be able to watch eSports tournaments and this demand will lead to better coverage. We’ve seen some memorable eSports moments recently and this is what spectators want. It will take some time for eSports to go mainstream and for that to happen we need to try to be more professional in getting the word out about the excitement on offer.”
Becoming a pro gamer might be the dream of many young people, but Grubby advised that it’s not all fun. As with so much else in life, succeeding in pro gaming comes through discipline.
“Basically being a pro gamer means practicing a lot and then performing  well against other players at live tournaments. There’s a lot of practice and a lot of travel and then you have to play well under pressure,” he remarked. “It’s very hard work and there are sacrifices involved, especially in the amount of time you have to devote to preparing and competing. There are lots of other things you can’t do because you’re very busy.  I’ll admit though that it’s very rewarding.  It’s an amazing feeling to obtain a victory at a major tournament, but even just trying and following your passion is incredible, too. For me specifically I can say that I love playing games and it really just happened automatically that I found out that there’s a scene of people who enjoy watching and playing in tournaments.  I tried my hand at it and it turned out that I was pretty good. I’ve never looked back.”
In order to never look back, Grubby offered some practical advice for all the mad gamers among the Arab News readers. He recommends staying mentally fit and taking good care of your hands. If you’re playing and your hands, wrists, arms or back start hurting — stop playing. Don’t play nonstop for hours at a time. Get up, walk around, stretch, take a break and then go back to gaming. Have a healthy body by keeping fit and that will help you have the healthy mind which is so important to great competitors.  Look into the ergonomics of gaming — sit up properly in a decent chair, support your arms well and use ergonomically designed gaming peripherals. 
As noted earlier,  for the 2011 professional StarCraft II tournament season, SteelSeries is the main sponsor of “Team Grubby.” Not only has leaving the Warcraft 3 tournaments for StarCraft 2 been a big departure for Grubby, but he’s going solo as the only member of Team Grubby.
“It is harder to be without an established team as a pro gamer, because the team  usually takes care of a lot of stuff such as bookings for trips and the business side of things, leaving you to concentrate on gaming.  In the eight years or so that I was in three different eSports teams, I learned a lot about what it takes to run a team and how to manage myself,” explained Grubby. “But I’m lucky as I have great sponsors in Steel Series and Team Grubby is partnered with European Game Series (EGS) and Enuzi Clothing. This means that my daily expenses are covered as well as my travel and I think I have advantages now that I didn’t have before, which will further my career in the long run.”
Grubby plays kitted out with everything from a SteelSeries 7H headset, to the SteelSeries Ikari Laser mouse and the SteelSeries 6Gv2 keyboard. He had a relationship with the company for several years before the sponsorship began and now he looks forward to providing input and feedback during the development of the company’s products.
Striking out on his own means setting up new communications channels for his fans and a month back www.FollowGrubby.com went live.  It’s the official Grubby homepage — a one-stop website for all things Grubby. Download the latest replays and watch video on demand including Warcraft 3 and StarCraft 2 commentaries. Grubby issued a personal invitation to all Arab News readers to visit the site to follow his adventure in South Korea, participate in the discussion forums and make friends with others who are passionate about gaming.