Most people spend their Saturdays sleeping and relaxing.
Sixth Former George Vollmer is not like most people.
Vollmer returns home at 8 a.m., hungry after working out at his local Planet Fitness. He opens the fridge and grabs the last of the raspberries and a watermelon Celsius. This is his second Celsius of the day. He knows he has a long day ahead of him.
Vollmer sits down in his gaming chair. All of the lights are off, making it almost impossible to see. He turns on his computer and the room turns red. His desk is red and black. On the desk sit two adjacent monitors, a white keyboard that glows purple, and a Razer mouse with green RGB lights. Under his desk sits his gaming PC with bright red lights.
Vollmer begins every gaming session with finger and wrist stretches to prevent any hand cramping. He then opens up Aim Labs on his computer to warm up his aim for 30 minutes before he plays.
“It’s just a game where you can practice your aim and you just shoot balls,” Vollmer said.
Vollmer is on a gaming team with fellow Sixth Formers Matt Kang and Dylan Kao and two others they found online.
“There are different communities that you can look at for a certain type of player that fits a certain role, so we just posted an ad in there,” Kao said.
Vollmer and his team play the game Valorant.
“Valorant is a five vs. five competitive shooter,” Kang said. “There is a defending team and an attacking team. The defending team wins the game if they eliminate all attacking players or by preventing the attacking team from planting a bomb. The attacking team wins if they eliminate all defending players or by planting and defending a bomb until it explodes.”
Before every match begins, every player picks a character with different abilities and roles.
“I usually play the support characters,” Vollmer said.
Vollmer’s character heals his teammates and helps create a cover for his team.
Once Vollmer feels warmed up, he joins a Discord call with the rest of his teammates.
“We will go over our strats on each map, our team comms, and who does what,” Vollmer said.
They also discuss how they can improve.
“There are three different aspects of the game: your mechanical skill, your game sense, and your mental,” Kao said. “A big part of the game is how good of a mental state you are in. If your mental breaks, you have lost the game for yourself.”
After thirty minutes of discussing strategy, Vollmer and his team are ready to get on the game and start practicing.
They spend the next four hours scrimmaging with other competitive Valorant teams. Vollmer and his team always record whenever they play.
“We usually record it, and we will watch it over and try to fix our mistakes for the next time,” Vollmer said.
“I just enjoy playing with my friends and winning.”
George vollmer ’23
Once the team has finished, Vollmer watches all of the games he played from the day to see what he can improve on. After reviewing his gameplay, he gets on Valorant again and plays online to practice on his own time, separate from his team.
“I just enjoy playing with my friends and winning,” Vollmer said.
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