Laurens Pluijmaekers

Laurens Pluijmaekers (other spelling: Laurens Pluymaekers; born September 22, 1984 ) is a former professional Dutch Unreal Tournament player, known by his pseudonym Lauke . Alongside his long-time rival Christian "GitzZz" Höck, he is considered one of the best players in the series of all time.

Career

First beginnings and WCG 2001

Laurens Pluijmaekers started his career in 2000 with Unreal Tournament . He was able to gain a high level of play very quickly and he quickly made a name for himself within the community. In the Dutch qualification for the World Cyber ​​Games 2001, he took first place and was thus able to qualify for the event. In his first major tournament, he then managed a very good fourth place.

WCG 2002 and the start of the rivalry with GitzZz

While they did not meet each other directly at the World Cyber ​​Games, the WCG 2002 saw the first direct encounter between the two players in a major tournament. GitzZz had to admit defeat to a competitor in the first round of the upper bracket. Lauke also dropped out of the upper bracket later in the tournament and so the two finally met in the lower bracket quarter-finals, which the German won and would later defend the entire tournament - and thus his title. This tournament was the cornerstone for the growing rivalry between the two opponents in the years to come. It should be noted that both players - despite all the rivalries - always treated each other with respect and both regularly expressed the greatest respect for each other in various interviews.

ESWC 2003 and WCG 2003

In the following year there were two big events - and thus the community hoped for a new edition of the "GitzZz versus Lauke" duel, which has meanwhile become a classic. However, there was none of the two the hoped slugfest, but for different reasons: while the Electronic Sports World Cup - from GitzZz won - both participants had clashed because of their seeding and early exit from Lauke not prevented the WCG 2003 USK by the indexing of Unreal Tournament 2003 and the resulting cancellation of the German WCG-UT qualification a participation of the German UT players - and thus also the participation of GitzZz, although he was actually set as the defending champion for the tournament.

At the World Cyber ​​Games 2003 Lauke played strong and reached the final; there, however, was defeated by the Italian Nicola "ForresT" Geretti.

Shortly afterwards, Lauke and his colleagues moved from xtremeclan to the renowned Fnatic clan .

ESWC 2004, CPL 2004 and first WCG title 2004

ESWC

At the Electronic Sports World Cup 2004 the two rivals finally met again and the fans of the Unreal Tournament 2004 game, which was new on the market at the time, should not be disappointed.

After both players were able to survive the group stage relatively safely, they met in the semi-finals that followed and ran a fabulous duel on 3 maps, which is still considered to be one of the best Unreal Tournament duels of all time. While Lauke won the first Map Roughinery with 15:11, GitzZz managed to defeat Ironic Lauke with 14:11 on his favorite map . Rankin finally followed as the third and decisive map , which could only be decided in the final minutes with 8: 4 in favor of GitzZz.

Lauke defeated ForresT in the game for 3rd place and was able to return the favor for the defeat in the final at the WCG 2003. GitzZz lost the final against his compatriot Maurice "Burnie" Engelhardt .

CPL Summer Extreme 2004

Just two weeks later, a team death match tournament took place in Dallas as part of the CPL Summer Extreme 2004, in which Pluijmaekers and his team Fnatic also took part.

Fnatic entered the tournament as a favorite and the team was able to meet expectations. In the Upper Bracket quarter-finals they were able to defeat the German clan mTw and then eliminated another German representative in the semi-finals, Ocrana . In the Upper Bracket Final there was another duel against a German clan: Schroet Kommando . Favorite SK was able to prevail after three close games and Fnatic had to go through the Lower Bracket Final. There you met mTw again, and again you could defeat the Germans. So they met SK again in the grand finale. The final was decided in favor of SK after two very tight maps, the outstanding player on the German side was Christian 'GitzZz' Höck .

WCG

In October 2004, Lauke finally managed to win a major international title at the World Cyber ​​Games. In the tournament, in which he said he felt “ stronger than ever ”, he managed to win the tournament and only hand over a single map. In the final he won against Engelhardt.

ESWC 2005 and WCG SEC 2005

In 2005 the WCG Samsung Euro Championship was held for the first time at the CeBIT in Hanover , where Lauke was able to achieve third place. In the final of the upper bracket he was defeated by the Italian Michele "DevilMC" Esposito, who later won the tournament; in the subsequent Loser Bracket Final he had to admit defeat to Austrian Markus "Falcon" Holzer.

A few months later at the ESWC 2005 Lauke was able to survive the first two group phases without defeat, but had to admit defeat to Falcon again in the semifinals. However, he won the game for 3rd place against DevilMC and was able to take revenge for the defeat at the SEC. The tournament was won by the Frenchman Michael "winz" Bignet .

GGL DigitalLife 2005

The last big event for Unreal Tournament 2004 was the DigitalLife Event, which was organized by the Global Gaming League , in October 2005 . Lauke was able to win the tournament by again facing DevilMC in the final and defeating him again.

Successes (excerpt)

• 4. - WCG 2001.
• 5th - WCG 2002 - $ 1,750
• 5th - ESWC 2003 - $ 1,200
• 2nd - WCG 2003 - $ 10,000
• 3rd - ESWC 2004 - $ 1,000
• 2nd - CPL Summer 2004 - $ 11,500
• 1st - WCG 2004 - $ 25,000
• 3. - WCG SEC 2005.
• 1. - GGL DigitalLife - $ 4,000

Clans

• xtremeclan
• Fnatic