Voor veel gamers lijkt het een droom profe ionele gamer te worden, maar het schijnt dat spelletjes spelen voor je geld toch niet zo makkelijk is dan je mi chien denkt en dat ook gamen een echte baan kan zijn.

Ten eerste moet je namelijk oefenen, oefenen en nog meer oefenen, voordat je goed genoeg bent om met de "Major League" mee te kunnen doen.

In dit artikel van CNET.com scrijven bekende gamers zoals Dennis "Thresh" Fong (van Firingsquad) en Jonathan "Fatality" Wendel over hun ervaringen als profe ionele gamer en de gevolgen hiervan voor hun leven. How do you get to the Cyberathlete Profe ional League Tournament in Dallas, one of the biggest events in the nascent but growing world of high-stakes computer gaming? Practice, practice, practice.

To geek or not to geek

High-stakes gaming also faces some image challenges. More than 97 percent of the CPL's players are male, mostly under 30 and unmarried.

But these aren't your stereotypical pale-skinned, socially challenged mouse potatoes, gamers insist.

"I do get kind of pasty when I practice a lot, but I play a lot of sports during the summer," said Wendel, who keeps his golf score in the low 80s and plays tennis on a regular basis.

"You need to get away from the computer," he added. "Plus, my hand-eye coordination is really good from playing tennis, and that's a big advantage in playing games."

Wendel also keeps an eye on the future. Like other top-level gamers, he works with a gaming Web site--in his case, Stomped--to share his expertise and offer a bit of a fallback position in case a meaner, faster "Quake" player emerges.

For now, though, life revolves around blasting away opponents in front of hundreds of cheering fans.

"It's an awesome feeling," Wendel said. "When there's that much money on the line, and all these people are watching, it really pumps me up." Als je er ook over denk profe ionele gamer te worden, bekijk dan hier eerst even de ervaringen van de pro's.