Approximately 700 gamers from 70 countries gathered Wednesday for five days of tournament play, exhibitions, conferences, ceremonies, performances and other special events at Suntec Singapore, a convention center-like venue.
Chan will be competing in the game WarCraft III.
"I'm really looking forward to competing in another world final," said Chan, who finished in fourth place at the 2004 World Cyber Games in San Francisco. "I'm a competitive guy by nature, and the strategic part of playing, really using the mind, is what intrigues me most about cyber games."
Chan, a 2001 graduate of Huntington Beach High School who is studying biology at Orange Coast College -- he has designs on becoming a doctor -- said he originally began to play cyber games a few years ago. He first delved into competition when he saw an online advertisement.
He ended up taking second place in that contest and has entered local, regional and national competitions since then.
A world-class player for the last three years, Chan has become a sponsored professional player in a fairly short period of time.
Known as "Shortround" to his gaming colleagues, Chan won the WarCraft III competition at the U.S. finals of the World Cyber Games in September. He's joined by 15 other Americans -- including one other Californian -- at the Grand Final in Singapore.
The game WarCraft III is a "real-time" game in which a player gathers resources, builds a compound and then uses his army to destroy an opponent's fortifications while protecting his own.
"It's not like chess, where you stop, pause and think about your next move," Chan said. "In a game like WarCraft III, you have to think on the fly and adjust your strategy to what your opponent is doing at any given moment.
