Pieter Bas Kwak

Pieter Bas Kwak (born July 28 1983 - Winterswijk, The Netherlands), also known under the pseudonym Darth, was one of the first Dutch professional cyberathletes. During his career he was the most internationally successful Dutch player of the team-based first person shooter game: Counter-Strike. Worth mentioning is that Counter-Strike is one of the most professionally played computer game in the world and his archievements are yet to put on a par by any other Dutch Counter-Strike gamer.

January 2001 he was signed by the top electronic sports team of the United Kingdom: Four Kings. This engagement allowed him to further develop his gaming skills to their full potential and pursue new goals, namely to participate in multiple professional gaming tournaments around the world and compete among the very best. This, in combination with the complete freedom afforded to him by living in the privacy and luxury of his own caravan in his parents' backyard quickly led to a steep increase in his ability as well as recognition from his peers, eventually amounting to participation in the most widely recognised professional tournaments, such as Cyberathlete Professional League and the World Cyber Games.

Even though his winnings are of no equivalence with respect to the enormous sums his fellow countrymen gamers - all solo players - Sander "Vo0" Kaasjager (Painkiller), Manuel "Grubby" Schenkhuizen (Warcraft III) and Laurens "Lauke" Pluymaekers (Unreal Tournament) earned with eSports, approximately a total worth of over €60.000 euros in cash and hardware prizes were won by the team during the four years of Pieter Bas' gaming-career.

Teams and tournaments

Before being scouted by the Four-Kings Counter-Strike team, Pieter Bas was an active player of the clan COTK, a top 10 team in the Netherlands. Early 2001 when he left COTK and took up a new challenge and the tag of 4K^Darth, the main team consisted of the players Jonny 'TheGenius' Neffgen , Marc 'Liquid' Mangiacapra, Doug 'Grim' Wright, Dan 'DaNfRaG' Lucking, Freek 'Oppressor' van Workum.

With the WCG coming up Pieter Bas had to look for alternatives to participate due to the World Cyber Games originally being a nation based tournament. Together with Robert 'Aapje' van Bakel en Freek 'Oppressor' van Workum plus several other renowned Dutch players they managed to form a pair-of-five that eventually beat all the well-established teams at the Dutch World Cyber Games qualifier. However, they did not end up going to the finals in Korea due to miscommunication with the organizers which in the end resulted in a disqualification.

At the CPL World Championship Winter Event December, 2001 the rules enforced players to use their surname instead of their online handle. From here onwards Pieter Bas always used his surname name Kwak as his nickname. In 2002 the Counter-Strike team left the Four Kings organization aiming at more profitable sponsorship deals. They started up their own clan and Infinity-eSports was born.

During the very successful year 2002 Freek van Workum was replayed by Stuart 'lil' Harriman and Jonny Neffgen stepped down as a leader and was replaced by Greg 'DArtagnan' Edwards. Pieter Bas got to compete in both the CPL (United States) and WCG (South Korea) this year. At end of 2002 Infinity-eSports remerged with the Four Kings organization, and Greg Edwards was replaced by Harvey "xenon" Migotti of Schroet Kommando fame.

During 2003, reorganization within the team after a disappointing performance at the french event Clikarena caused friction within the team which eventually led to Pieter Bas leaving the Four Kings team and restarting the Infinity-eSports team together with his old teammates Daniel Lucking and Greg Edwards. In the end this team was based around the players Pieter Bas Kwak, Greg Edwards, Daniel Lucking, Kalle 'Phyrre' Andersson and Andréas 'KixeR' Sjölander (who afterwards got contracted by team such as 4K, mTw and NoA). This team but never really got their promised sponsorship deals which led to the inactivity of the whole team and the end of Pieter Bas' gaming-career in the spring of 2004.

Notable achievements

2004

UK, Hull - UKTerrorist Professional VI (1st Infinity-eSports)

2003

SE, Stockholm - EuroCup VII Finals (2nd Four Kings)
SE, Stockholm - HLO Bootcamp (Four Kings)
FR, Toulouse - Clikarena (12th-16th Four Kings)
UK, Birmingham - Bootcamp (Four Kings)
UK, Northampton - UKTerrorist Lan Championship (1st Four Kings)

2002

UK, London - Intel Masters, Science Museum (1st Four Kings)
ROK, Daejeon - World Cyber Games (reGeneration)
NL, Veldhoven - WCG Netherlands Qualifier Finals (1st reGeneration)
NL, Rotterdam - TGS WCG Pre-Qualifier (1st reGeneration)
SP, Madrid - CPL Oslo Qualifier Madrid (2nd Hell Squad)
UK, London - Games Domain Championship (1st Infinity eSports)
US, Dallas - CPL Pentium 4 Summer Championship (6th Infinity eSports)
UK, Northampton - Gainward CPL Dallas Qualifier (1st Infinity eSports)
UK, Slough - Bootcamp (Infinity-eSports)
UK, Bicester - Roweb Combat250 (1st Infinity-eSports)
UK, Newburry - Multiplay i-10 (1st Infinity-eSports)
UK, Maidenhead - Primairy Strike (Infinity-eSports)

2001

US, Dallas - CPL World Championship Winter Event (9th Four-Kings)
UK, London - AMD CPL Dallas Qualifier (1st Four-Kings)
UK, Newburry - Multiplay i-9 (1st Four-Kings)
NL, Almere - WCG Netherlands Qualifier Finals 2001 (1st reGeneration)
NL, Loosdrecht - Pentium 4 Processor CPL Holland 2001 (12th Four-Kings)

External links and sources

* [http://www.four-kings.com Four Kings Intel]
* [http://www.ukterrorist.com/interviews/clan/cs/ies_kwak_aku/ Interview with I-eS|Kwak & I-eS|Akuji] 2003-09-06
* [http://www.ukterrorist.com/interviews/clan/cs/4kdarth/ UKTerrorist Interview: Too Easy For 4K^Darth] 2003-02-06
* [http://www.ukterrorist.com/reports/4kcpl/ UKTerrorist Interview: 4Kings at the CPL WC] (2001-12-11)
* [http://www.avault.com/events/wce/index.asp?p=4kings Adrenaline Vault Interview: Four Kings] (2001-12-04)