Nelson '06 declared best Quake player, winning a cool $20,000

"I was invited to a 10-on-10 tournament in London — North America versus Europe — but I couldn't go, because I had my Princeton Alumni interview that day," said Paul Nelson '06. Nelson is one of the nation's — and the world's — best Quake III players.

Quake is a computer game set in a 3-D world, in which opponents fight each other using different tools at their disposal. One-on-one games take about 15 minutes each, and team games are progressively longer, Nelson said.

In summer 2000, his four-member team and coach, all coming from different cities around the country, won an international tournament competition, FRAG 4, and earned almost $20,000 during two weekends of play. Nelson was named most valuable player.

"As the games became more popular, leagues popped up and people began turning the hobby into a profession," Nelson said, explaining that some players use the game as their sole means of income.

Intel, Microsoft and different microchip makers began sponsoring tournaments and teams for different computer games.

While at the University, Nelson has stopped playing to concentrate on his studies, though he admits that computer games have never taken up most of his time. He stressed the balance that he keeps with his activities, citing his Princeton interview and a trip to Korea for a chemistry competition, for which he missed gaming opportunities, as examples.

Nelson said he even left his desktop computer at home, which is made up of all different computer parts that he has won at various competitions.

"I wouldn't say it's entirely behind me, but I think that the heyday is over," he said of his gaming career, being a part of the number one Quake team three years straight.

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He chose as his gaming nickname "czm," stemming from "crazy man." He decided that at age 12, when he penned the name, to "misspell it a bit" and make it "seem kind of tough" by deleting all of the vowels and several letters.

Nelson, who plans to major in mathematics, credits his computer game-playing success to the algorithmic and mathematical way in which he approaches the game, which differed from the more mechanical approaches most players use.

"It was more of a science for me," he said.

This summer, aside from spending time with friends and helping his sister with the SATs, he hopes to pick up Quake III again and enter a few tournaments.

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"I've been playing computer games since I was like three," Nelson said. He said he gradually progressed from playing games like Mario Bros. to becoming involved in the online gaming community.

"There is a huge infrastructure involved with playing games online, with a large social aspect," he said. As word-of-mouth about his success with Quake spread, he began to compete in tournaments online, both individually and as part of teams.

"I started going to more and more tournaments after that," he said, noting the continued encouragement that his family gave him.