This kid will totally p0wn you

June 7th, 2007 | Posted by PostmanE

Exactly this time two years ago, I was your relatively typical college summer dweller. I had a job working for a youth sports camp, another stringing stories for my local newspaper, and a third working very brief dinner shifts behind a local bar. It was a fun, relaxed summer, with plenty of time spent in front of the pool.

Much more time was spent, however, in front of my and my roommate’s XBox, playing Halo 2 online. I still play, but I’ve never quite achieved the two hours per day habit I had back then. It was great fun, starting as a n00b and working my way up to semi-respectable status. It’s dangerously addicting, too, and frustrating, because most of the time it feels like you’re either playing against 25-year-old burnouts or 10-year-old kids that, for some reason, have quicker hand-eye coordination than you. Considering the amount of pot smoked by the former, and the lack of cranial development in the latter, you’d think you’d have an advantage. Not so much.

Today, thanks to the New York Times, I learned that half of my suspicions about my competitors were proven correct. That little dude pictured to the right is Lil’ Poison, a nine-year-old considered one of the best professional Halo players in the country, and I’m sure he’s murdered me at some point. To wit:

Victor M. De Leon III has been playing video games on the professional circuit for five years now, racking up thousands of dollars in prizes and endorsements at tournaments around the country. He has a national corporate sponsor, a publicist and a Web site, with 531 photos chronicling his career. A documentary filmmaker has been following him for months.

Victor weighs 56 pounds and likes to watch SpongeBob SquarePants at his home here on Long Island. He celebrated his 9th birthday last month with a trip to a carnival and a vanilla cake. He gets above-average marks in the third grade, where he recently drew a dragon for art class.

The appropriately named Victor — better known to cyber rivals and fans as Lil’ Poison — is thought to be the world’s youngest professional gamer; Guinness has called about listing him in its book of World Records. Starting on Friday, he is set to be among 2,500 competitors in the three-day Major League Gaming Pro Circuit Event at the Meadowlands in New Jersey, battling for titles like the titan on the Xbox game Halo 2 and prizes up to $20,000.

If there’s proof that some people just have natural born talents, this kid is it. He started playing when he was 2, and was better than his dad at the age of 4. 4!! I’m not sure whether this is to be celebrated or lamented; after all, 300 years ago, this kid would probably be composing beautiful sonatas, Mozart-style. Instead, he’s racking up a totally sick kill-to-death ratio. Seems wasteful.