So Johan ‚NaNiwa‘ Luccesi forfeited his match vs Polt in the Intel Extreme Masters World Championship yesterday – officially because the boxes for the players on the stage are not soundproofed. That is necessary because otherwise the audience could give hints to the players. Naniwa suspected that Polt scouted a proxy Rax because of the audiences reaction yesterday. By the way, the incident perfectly fits my portrait of NaNiwa i wrote a few days ago.

no soundproofing at IEM, dont see any point in playing this but wahtever, im done with this after these games xD

— Johan Lucchesi (@NaNiwaSC2) 14. März 2014

polt said he could hear casters and i did too but they said they couldnt fix it, so i rather not play a meaningless game just like blizzcup

— Johan Lucchesi (@NaNiwaSC2) 15. März 2014

I don’t think we have to discuss that this is disrespectful behaviour towards the tournament, other players and viewers. But [naniwa] sure as hell is not the first professional gamer to act somewhere between funny and tragic at a big tournament. I was for example instantly reminded of [tod]. Today a well-known caster in Starcraft 2 he used to be a big player in Warcraft 3 for a long time. And he had some problems with tournament conditions as well. In a tournament in China (i think it was WEG Masters 2006, but correct me if i am wrong) he complained about the room being too cold, in WC3L semifinals 2007 it was too hot to play – and [tod] could rant about that for two full minutes

Do you know of more players refusing to play because of conditions at the gaming area?