Team SoloMid's Peter "dupreeh" Rothmann spoke to theScore eSports about his journey to becoming a professional player, recent success and what it is like to play against the best.

For those who don’t know your background, how did you go from being a casual player to a top tier competitive player and were there any players who helped you along the way?

I’ve always enjoyed playing Counter-Strike, even the earliest versions when I was just a kid. I was introduced to the game by my older brother who had just acquired a new PC. He was studying a lot so whenever he was gone, I had time to settle down and play my favourite game! Obviously I knew nothing about playing the game competitively, so I was solely playing casual games. I was, without being cocky, the best player among my friends and I’ve always had a flair for playing video games.

A few years later I was introduced to Counter-Strike: Source and after countless hours of casual, I was introduced to a whole new aspect of the game by getting on my first team, where you actually played together and worked out strategies. I attended my first LAN with a bunch of friends a few months later, and I was completely hooked.

I never really had a major breakthrough career-wise in Counter-Strike: Source, maybe because I never had the chance on a top tier team or maybe because I just wasn’t good enough. However, by the end of the Counter-Strike: Source era, I had made a couple of new friends from the top tier teams, mostly the guys from former 3DMAX, smF, socN, xlo and gravity, and when CS:GO was released, their 5th decided to quit and smF split to another team, I was asked to tryout for them, and since I’ve been around the top tier scene in Denmark, until now, that I’ve made a breakthrough, also winning international titles. The guys from 3DMAX helped me by giving me the chance, to prove my worth, and the next big step was getting picked up by FeTiSh and allowing me to play with him, cajun and device, whom I still play in a team with! Not to forget, 3k2, has always been someone I’ve been looking up to, and a guy I’ve learned a lot from, so big thanks to everyone I’ve mentioned.

Was dupreeh the name you had before you went pro? How did you come up with it?

Ever since I started playing competitively I’ve been using the name dupreeh.

I actually stole it from my brother, honestly. He was playing Online Poker, with the name O.G. (Original Gangster) Dupree, and I thought Dupreeh was a cool name. So I added an ‘h’ to the end, to make it more my own. And that’s the story behind my name!

Prior to roughly seven months ago, your team had struggled to perform in big games. Do you think there was a reason you guys had so much trouble winning events prior to this year? You always had the talent, but what changed that helped you break into the current form you are in?

I believe that karrigan has made the difference by bringing a whole new aspect to our playstyle. I think a few of us always had problems with pressure, especially because it kept bugging us. We always seemed to face Ninjas in Pyjamas when they were at their peak, and we always, always lost to them, so it was just frustrating. The community also applied some sort of pressure by always talking about us choking, but indeed, we did choke when the games got close or we played important matches. However, we broke the curse when we won our first international title and it made us win three events in a row, defeating Fnatic over and over again. Whenever we lose now, I don’t think it’s about choking, but more about either adapting poorly to your enemies’ playstyle or the enemies playing extremely well. When we have confidence in our game, we’re deadly.

You and the rest of your team have been very happy with karrigan’s leadership as far as we’ve been told. What do you think he has done (or does) that helps you more than your previous leaders? How much of your current success comes down to him?

I’m gonna go as far and say that karrigan is the main reason why we have won titles in 2015. Not that karrigan is killing 30 every half, or does insane stuff all the time, but he’s willing to sacrifice himself for the team. He drops either me, device or cajun guns and all he asks for is a pistol. He doesn’t care, actually, he likes to run in first, and take all the attention and then the rest of us enters to clean up. The thing I like about karrigan, is that he plays very fluently. He like to roam around and love to come up with ideas how to approach the round or what to do, if we’re getting in troubles. He’s a brilliant IGL and he’s doing so much for the team, and he’s always open to new ideas and always tries to develop new strategies or think in new ways, that no one has ever seen before.

Then again, device has stepped up massively the last couple of months, and his performances is motivating the rest of us to perform too, so we’re getting a lot of confidence from him playing well.

TSM was probably the first choice as the favorites to win the last Major in Cologne, but you ended up going out in semis to EnVyUs. Why do you think you fell short?



I sucked of course, we felt that we could’ve won that game, but that’s not how it worked out. As for every match against EnVyUs, it’s about who’s hitting the most shots and doing the right mid-round calls, and they have as many talented players and a great IGL to perform it to perfection almost every time, so playing them is extremely difficult. However, I believe if we get our game going too, together with them, it’s extremely hard to predict who’s going to win.

I don’t think any of us has an advantage, it’s all about pure skill.

Does a loss in the semis make you even hungrier for a win here? How do you feel against other top teams in Cluj-Napoca?

As with all the other times, we just want to win. That’s the main goal, everything else is not acceptable. If we go out in another semi, I might start crying. This time, we want to win more than ever.

You are once again a popular choice as the potential winners and have been in good form recently. How will you be preparing for the Major and will you be doing anything differently than usual for it?

I can’t talk too much about it, but I can say that we’ve got some stuff that people will not be prepared for. Hopefully, we’ll win this time. That’s what is going to be done very differently, I hope.

Assuming you make it far in Cluj-Napoca, you will certainly face some hard opponents. What do you think the most important things are for a team when playing in the big matches late into an event? How do you get an edge when the competition gets as hard as possible and you are under pressure to perform?

We’re used to pressure, as we’ve tried it so many times before. You can’t think about it as a major, you just have to think that’s it’s a normal best-of-three in any other league, and play your game. If you let the pressure or the amount of people spectating hit you, you’re done. We’re not going to face an opponent that we do not know, as we’ve fought all of the top tier teams multiple times. Hit your shots, read them as well as you can and play as a team, that’s the key to victory.

Your team has a handful challengers in every event. Are there any teams or players in which you enjoy defeating more than others and why? When facing each opponent do you go into the game with a different mindset?

Fnatic will always be the funniest team to win against, mostly because we’ve done it a lot lately and I know it still bugs them. It’s a fun little rivalry, but however, Fnatic is still the better team this year, due to their amazing results throughout the entire year, so I have a massive respect for them. I love playing them as it’s always exciting and fun, and it can go either way. I would love a majors final against them!

It’s also fun beating dignitas, but I think it’ll be hard for both of us to face each other. It has to be in a quarterfinal then.

Fortunately, you were placed in a relatively easy group with mousesports, G2 and FlipSid3. Which of the three are you worried about the most and which do you think will likely, if all goes well, join your team in the Top 8 and why them?

I’m confident that we will win our groups, not easily, but still comfortably. The biggest challenger is probably going to be G2, as they have some really good individualists, but recently did a roster change, so I don’t know their current situation. mousesports is a team that can either hit really hard or simply fall short. I’m never going to count them out, because I’ve seen what damage they can cause once their individualists hits their shots, and gob b makes some beautiful calls. I’m confident that the 2nd place will be between mousesports and G2.

Flipsid3 on the other side, is somewhat the same as mousesports, they either perform decent or simply fail to deliver. I think they can cause an upset (hopefully not against us) but I still think they’ll place either third or fourth in the group.

This interview was edited and condensed for clarity.

Jacob Juillet writes about Counter-Strike for theScore eSports. Follow him on Twitter.