Scheduled: 00:00 CDT, 5 April 2009 to 09:00 CDT, 5 April 2009
Schedule: Passed

THE ROUND OF 64 STARTS 4 HOURS LATER

Averatec-Intel Classic Season 3 will run for 20 weeks from March 29, 2009. Unlike most of the other StarCraft leagues, there will be no preliminary matches, all matches are considered as a part of the knockout tournament. Averatec-Intel Classic Season 3 will be broadcasted live in English by Daniel "SuperDanielMan" Lee & Nick "Tasteless" Plott.

00:00 CDT, 5 April 2009, Ro.128
PrOtoss KTF MagicNs -vs- g_soulkey Woongjin Stars
tosky Hwaseung OZ -vs- ReaL Woongjin Stars
YellOw Air Force ACE -vs- jjonga CJ ENTUS
Azang CJ ENTUS -vs- Barracks KTF MagicNs

04:00 CDT, 5 April 2009, Ro.64
Spear Hwaseung OZ -vs- ClouD Airforce ACE
AdamaS (aka casey) Airforce ACE -vs- PrOtoss (aka Stats) KTF MagicNs
keke Wemade FOX -vs- DArKeLf CJ ENTUS
skyhigh CJ ENTUS -vs- Rage Airforce ACE

Last night the grand finals between Sweden and Poland A. Sweden managed to take home that win with 3 straight maps. Poland put up a really good fight, especially at their own map pick cpm21. The other two maps could Sweden take home quite easy through really solid play and map control.

Swedens lineup: fluff, funnyb, link, rep and voodoochopstiks as coach
Polands lineup: dziku, pejn, v3rb, WAP and RAUL as their coach.

Screenshots (thanks rep): Ospdm5a, Cpm21, Cpm27
Demos: Ospdm5a, Cpm21, Cpm27
VODs and mp3s can be found at djWHEATs site.

Myself and ethad would like to thank every team for playing, spectators for speccing and djWHEAT for casting the final games. Congratulations to the top4 teams! The 2009 CPM TDM Nationscup is now over, we'll be back next with a 2v2 cup and later on with a few surprises.

Over 'n out!

Scheduled: 14:00 CDT, 29 March 2009 to 16:00 CDT, 29 March 2009
Schedule: Passed

After the semi-final between United Kingdom and Poland A last Sunday the teams for the grand final has been decided.

Grand Final:
Poland A vs Sweden will be played at Sunday 29/3 21.00 CET in best-of-5 maps. A shoutcast from djWHEAT will be available. Poland came out of the semifinal with a quite tight game against United Kingdom where they won 2:1 in 3 exciting maps. Sweden won their semifinal against Icemark with 2:0 maps, where an especially close cpm4a.

Consolation Final:
Icemark vs United Kingdom (to be scheduled)

Thanks to djWHEAT there are VODs, mp3s and demos available from the UK vs Poland A game. All of them can be found at djwheat.tv. Although the VOD from map 3 has unfortunately been lost.

Tourney site: cpmnations.tourney.cc - #cpm.nations

Scheduled: 04:00 CDT, 29 March 2009 to 08:00 CDT, 29 March 2009
Schedule: Passed

Guess what - it's BACK!
LIVE on 04:00 CDT, 29 March 2009

Averatec-Intel Classic Season 3 will run for 20 weeks from March 29, 2009.
Unlike most of the other StarCraft leagues, there will be no preliminary matches, all matches are considered as a part of the knockout tournament.

Just like Averatec-Intel Classic Season 2 which was enjoyed by people from around 190 countries, Averatec-Intel Classic Season 3 will be also broadcast live in English by Daniel Lee & Nick "Tasteless" Plott.

This week will feature the following Round of 128 matches (matchlist with images):
ToSsGirL (STX SOUL) -vs- Casey (Samsung Khan) 1 2 3
idra (CJ ENTUS) -vs- Trap (STX SOUL) 1 2 3
Rage (Air Force ACE) -vs- perfectman (Hwaseung OZ) 1 2 3
ClouD (Air Force ACE) -vs- Fire (Woongjin Stars) 1 2 3


Also on April 5th top 64’s 1st round will be played, and starting from the April 12th the mobilization of top 32 players in full force will be witnessed. Read the full article here.

The QuakeWorld Quake Nations Cup 2009 has now reached its final encounter. This Sunday the final battle between Finland and Netherlands will take place. The match is scheduled for 13:00 CDT and will be broadcasted on QuakeTV. Also you can bet on the game on Goldrush.

Here you can watch the live stream

You can read the full preview on quakeworld.nu.

The first qualifier for the Quake 3 EMS 4 just took place Sunday and saw 24 players signed up. After the first group stage, the second group stage and finally the first round of the playoff, the 4 first qualified players came out:

- Viaceslavas "fire_bot" Duk
- Marius "guard" Ivanauskas
- Michael "mAdix" Hindersson
- Richard "noctis" Gansterer

The Qualifier #2 is scheduled for next Sunday and the sign-ups should open on Monday by 18h00 CET.

Update: Sign-ups for the Qualifier #2 are now open!

Due to the current financial crisis, the ESWC Grand Finals has been postponed until the end of the year.

None of the past ESWC partners has yet renewed its support for 2009, [..] No new partner is ready to commit on financial support of events operations in 2009. The IT & Hardware market is very affected here in Western Europe, as probably in the rest of the world.

Sponsorships and communication budgets are the first to be canceled in such situation. And as E-Sport stands as a niche value for most of the brands, it is even more difficult

(As a result) we will suspend the upcoming Grand Final of June to postpone it to last quarter 2009.

Says Matthieu Dallon, the ESWC president.

The financial situation has certainly had its negative impact on electronic sports recently, with ESWC struggling, MYM closing down large parts of their organisation, AMD stopping all major sponsorships and mTw being forced to cut gamer salaries by 50-75%. Apart from the ever successful Starcraft in Korea, progaming seems to have gone back several years just in the past few months.

Due to deotrip dropping out to move back to Germany, we have one to fill in the ESL Pro Series UK.

An 8 player, single elimination cup will be played on Monday night to decide who takes the spot. The requirements are that you live in the UK (nationality is irrelevent) and are at least 15 years of age.


To sign up, register and login to the ESL and sign up!

The inaugural Quake 3 ESL Pro Series in the UK kicks off this week featuring 12 players from around the UK (and Ireland!).

Playday #1
ddk vs. dallow (match link - betting fixture)
HELL vs. PRIESTLEY (match link - betting fixture)
IspAH vs. dopey (match link - betting fixture)
rax vs. dozo (match link - betting fixture)
GaRpY vs. getsome (match link - betting fixture)
kRoNic vs. deotrip (match link - betting fixture)

Due to the short preparation time all matches from the first week are not at their default time and are currently being scheduled.

Betting fixtures will be made later today!

EPS UK - Rankings - Fixtures

Update: Sign ups for the Qualifier #1 are already full, but if you leave a comment in the ESL news you can be added to the waiting list.

The ESL just released some informations about the qualification process for the Quake 3 ESL Major Series 4. The top4 of 4 Qualifiers cups will gain access to the Q3 EMS4 roster, and the final 8 players will be selected from applications to be invited. After that, the 24 players will compete for the 750€ cashprize.

The Qualifier #1 will start this Sunday 22nd of March at 16h00 CET and will feature 2 group stages (8 groups of 4 players with bo1 matches, then 4 groups of 4 players on bo3) and a double elimination brackets on bo3.

Qualifiers schedule:

- Qualifier #1: Sunday 22nd March
- Qualifier #2: Sunday 29th March
- Qualifier #3: Sunday 5th April
- Qualifier #4: Sunday 12th April

More informations regarding the rules and the sign-ups can be found on the ESL website.

Source: ESL.eu - #esl.q3

We're finally getting down to serious business.

Sweden vs Icemark @ Thursday 21:00 CET
United Kingdom vs Poland A @ Sunday 22:00 CET

I asked djWHEAT to shoutcast the semi-final games. The days he could do some shoutcasting is from Wednesday to Sunday, so that's the days you can pick to schedule the game. Since none of you settled for a date I don't think this should be a problem. As usual, tell me when you scheduled the game RIGHT AFTER YOU SCHEDULED IT!

The really strong team of Sweden will face off the joined nations Iceland and Denmark.
I think that Sweden will win this one in 2 straight maps, they played each other during the group stage and Sweden managed to win that one convincingly with 2:0 in maps. Although I doubt that Icemark will let the win go easily, they've got some high skilled and really good aim at their team and will use that to counter the Swedes.

United Kingdom and Poland A will face off in the other semi-final. I think this game will be really interesting and the predictions pretty hard. Poland A consists of some of the old schoolers of Poland with the addition of the vq3er v3rb. I'm expecting crazy aim and some nice team play from the Polish team.
The UK team has some wide spread skill and knowledge of the game, with the powerhouse ddk in the front.

I'd say this game goes 2:1 to Poland A, but depending on the lineup from UK that could as well turn to 2:1 in the favor to UK.

As always, you can find the updates first at the tourney site or at irc (#cpm.nations)

Update: Unfortunately djWHEAT couldn't make it for the Sweden vs Icemark game tonight, but he confirmed that he will be here at Sunday when United Kingdom and Poland A is playing!

The Cheonan 2009 eSports Cultural Festival presents ESWC Asia Masters – Starcraft

For the first time, Starcraft will be in an ESWC event. 4 players from around the world will fly to Cheonan City, South Korea to participate in the ESWC Masters. Here's all the information that you’ll need in the qualification process:

There are 2 ways to play in a regional qualifying event. Each regional qualifying event will have a total of 16 players. 14 of these players will be invited to the tournament. The other 2 players will be qualified through an open tournament system.

• ESWC Asia Masters rules

Rules for the ESWC Asia Masters regional qualifying events

- All players must show up at the designated time for the tournament in the ESWC ICCup server channel.

- All players must use the LAN Latency setting as well as the Anti-Hack ICCup Launcher.

- All other 3rd party programs, including but not limited to, map hacks, BWCoach, and disconnection hacks are prohibited. Any illegal use of 3rd party programs will result in immediate disqualification from the tournament.

- Use of allied mines / allied lurkers, or any yet to be discovered bugs is prohibited.

- All players must maintain good manner and fair play.

- All players must save the replay file of every game and give them to tournament administrators.

The tournaments are Best of 3 games, double elimination. The Grand Final match of each qualifier is Best of 5 games, with the winner's bracket winner starting up 1-0 and choosing map 1. The first map in all other rounds will be preset by tournament administrators. The loser of each game will choose the map used in the next game. No map may be used twice in any match. The map pool is as follows:

Destination
Medusa
Colosseum 2
Shin Chupung-Ryeong
Neo Harmony

The newest version of each map will be used.

Any breaking of these rules, or unforeseen events, will be judged by tournament administrators.

• ESWC Asia Masters Press meeting done in English

Artosis was on the scene to do coverage at the ESWC Asia Masters press meeting in Korea, you can watch the video by

Clicking Here.

• ESWC Asia Masters Asia qualifier information

Asia Qualifier

Open Tournament (top 2 qualify): Sunday, March 15th 11:00 AM Beijing time. Channel ESWC on ICCup.

ESWC Qualifier (top 1 goes to ESWC): Day 1 (play until top 3) Saturday, March 21st 11:00 AM Beijing time. Channel ESWC on ICCup.

Day 2 (Loser's bracket final, Grand Final) Sunday, March 22nd 11:00 AM Beijing time.

Click here to register for the Asian qualifier #1

Click here to register for the Asian qualifier #2

• ESWC Asia Masters Europe qualifier information

European Qualifier

Open Tournament 1 (top 1 qualifies): March 23rd @ 18:00 CET, Channel ESWC on ICCup

Open Tournament 2 (top 1 qualifies): March 24th @ 18:00 CET, Channel ESWC on ICCup

ESWC Qualifier (top 1 goes to ESWC): Day 1 (play until top 3) Saturday, March 28th 11:00 CET Channel ESWC on ICCup.

Day 2 (Loser's bracket final, Grand Final) Sunday, March 29th 11:00 CET

Click here to register for the European qualifier #1

Click here to register for the European qualifier #2

• ESWC Asia Masters America qualifier information

Americas Qualifier

Open Tournament 1 (top 1 qualifies): March 30th @ 6:00 PM EST, Channel ESWC on ICCup

Open Tournament 2 (top 1 qualifies): March 31st @ 6:00 PM EST, Channel ESWC on ICCup

ESWC Qualifier (top 1 goes to ESWC): Day 1 (play until top 3) Saturday, April 4th @ 2:00 PM EST

Day 2 (Loser's bracket final, Grand Final) Sunday, April 5th @ 2:00 PM EST

Click here to register for the North & South American qualifier #1

Click here to register for the North & South American qualifier #2

Note: Players from Africa must play in the European Open Tournaments. Players from Australia and New Zealand may choose between the Asia and Americas Open Tournaments, but may not play in both.

Now it's official: The upcoming ESL Major Series Season IV will support Starcraft Broodwar again. After the great success of the first season, we've decided to give this great game another chance.
This Season will have 750€ prize money:

1st Place - 450 Euro
2nd Place - 200 Euro
3rd Place - 100 Euro

Of course, we will have like in the last Season a weekly coverage via ESL-TV. So you are able to watch this hot games live (always Mondays at 15:00 CDT)! After the matches, you can download the replays of the other games or watch the VoD again. The shows will be mainly in German.

More info: EMS announcement - Cup Dates

It is that time of year again. Time to register for North America's largest LAN party, QuakeCon 2009! Ultra mega BYOC'ing, awesome tournaments featuring Id Software related games including the highly anticipated QuakeLive, and meeting up with old friends and making new ones are just a few of the numerous activities awaiitng you.

Although specific information has not been provided so far, with QuakeLive now in open beta, it is a safe bet it will the headliner of at least a few cash tournaments taking place during the event.

Now almost thirteen years old, QuakeCon is one of the oldest pro gaming events on the planet. And with free admission it should be on your list of must-attend destinations this summer.

Location: Hilton Anatole in Dallas, TX USA
Dates: August 13-16, 2009

QuakeCon Registration Page: http://registration.quakecon.org

The ESL just announced the fourth edition of their ESL Major Series, the ESL version of the Clanbase Eurocups. The newest edition will feature 14 games (ten team games and four duel games) and a total prize money of 17.250€. For the first time the EMS will feature a Quake tournament: Quake3 1on1. The Quake 3 tournament will have a total prize money of 750€. More details about qualification, rules and system will be announced soon.


- Official ESL Announcement
- EMS Prize Money Overview