Intel Extreme Masters

Gaming world champs named and awarded.

News by GamesIndustry International Contributor

Published on March 9, 2011

Intel Extreme Masters V World Championship – 413,500 US Dollars in total prize money in the fifth season – The first Intel Friday Night Game of the ESL Pro Series Summer Season 2011

Cologne, March 09, 2011 – The fifth season of the Intel Extreme Masters, the global league of the video game champions organized by the Electronic Sports League (ESL), has come to an end last Saturday at CeBIT in Germany. For over seven months world's best professional gamers in Counter-Strike 1.6, Quake Live and StarCraft II competed for the World Champion title and a share of 413,500 US Dollars - the highest prize money in an international league. The prize money for the Hanover event was 153,500 US Dollars. Next to the World Championship competition, the event at CeBIT hosted the Intel Extreme Masters League of Legends Invitational Tournament with a total prize money of 13,500 US Dollars and the first Intel Friday Night Game of the ESL Pro Series Summer Season 2011, the German national league for computer games. The "Intel Extreme Masters Hall" (hall 23) at CeBIT where all the tournaments were taking place was visited by more than 270,000 visitors this year.

Quake Live

In the grand final of this discipline we saw Shane 'rapha' Hendrixson from the U.S., the World Champion from the last year, and Anton 'Cooller' Singov from Russia, the European Champion from this season. After defeating his opponent 3:0 the American claimed the title once again and took home the trophy and a cheque for 8,500 US Dollars. On his way to the final 'rapha' defeated the Swede Sebastian 'Spart1e' Siira, who eventually finished the competition on the fourth position. Kevin 'Strenx' Baeza from France, who lost his semi-final to the World Championship silver medalist from Russia, was placed third in the Quake Live competition.

Counter-Strike 1.6:

In the final of Counter-Strike 1.6 we saw another defending champion from the last year, team Natus Vincere from Ukraine. Their opponent was team Frag eXecutors, a squad from Poland which won the title in the year 2007 under the name of PGS Gaming. The Poles were the favourites of the tournament but did not manage to defeat the reigning champions in the final battle. The Ukrainians won the grand final 2:0 and were granted a prize of 35,000 US Dollars. The bronze medal was won in this competition by team mTw from Denmark, which was defeated by the World Champions in the semi-finals.

Starcraft 2

The last matches of the youngest discipline of the Intel Extreme Masters league were completely dominated by the Korean players. The title as well as 13,000 US Dollars was won by Wu-Seo 'Ace' Jung who defeated in the grand final Jae-Ho 'Moon' Jang, the world famous Warcraft 3 player also known as "The Fifth Race." The third place was taken by Hyun-Woo 'Squirtle' Park who fought for the bronze medal with an Australian Andrew 'mOOn-GLaDe' Pender.

League of Legends

In this Intel Extreme Masters invitational tournament four teams competed for a share of 13,500 US Dollars. Eventually, the first place and 4,750 US Dollars was won by team myRavenge from Germany. In the final match they faced team Against All Authority from France which was unable to defeat the Germans.

The winners of the Intel Extreme Masters V World Championship:

Counter-Strike 1.6:

1. Natus Vincere (Ukraine) - $35,000

2. Frag eXecutors (Poland) - $17,000

3. mTw (Denmark) - $8,500

Quake Live:

1. Shane 'rapha' Hendrixson (USA) - $8,500

2. Anton 'Cooller' Singov (Russia) - $4,000

3. Kevin 'Strenx' Baeza (France) - $2,500

Starcraft 2:

1. Wu-Seo 'Ace' Jung (South Korea) - $13,000

2. Jae-Ho 'Moon' Jang (South Korea) - $6,500

3. Hyun-Woo 'Squirtle' Park (South Korea) - $4,000

The winners of the Intel Extreme Masters League of Legends Invitational Tournament:

1. myRevenge (Germany) - $4,750

2. Against All Authority (France) - $2,750

3. SK-Gaming (international) - $2,250

4. Dignitas (international) - $1,750

ESL TV with a new record

ESL's web TV service, ESL TV, provided and incredible service during all five days of CeBIT. For the first time in history the show was produced in High Definition and broadcasted in eight languages (English, German, Polish, Russian, Swedish, Chinese, Spanish and Portuguese). The new ESL TV all-time concurrent viewers record was set on the final day at 75,000. Altogether the broadcast gathered a total of 2,150,000 viewers.

The start of the ESL Pro Series Summer Season 2011

March 3 was the first day of the Summer Season 2011 of the ESL Pro Series, the German national league for computer games. The first battle of the evening was a FIFA 11 match between Team Bavarian Heaven from Munich and team n!faculty from Cologne. The 1:2 loss of the latter gave the team from Bavaria a chance to advance to the playoffs of the league. In the following Starcraft 2 match we saw a multiple German Warcraft 3 Champion, Dario 'TheLittleOne' Wünsch and Dennis "HasuObs" Schneider. Suprisingly, after a rather tight battle on each map the champion had to face a defeat, HasuObs won 2:0. The last game of the IFNG at CeBIT was a Counter-Strike: Source battle between team Thermaltake and team gamed!de which eventually ended with a result 16:12 for the latter.

"We knew the Intel Extreme Masters World Championship at CeBIT would be a success, but we never envisioned it to be a success of this magnitude," said Michal Blicharz, the Project Manager at Turtle Entertainment. "The event surpassed our wildest expectations," he added.

Intel Extreme Masters

The Intel® Extreme Masters is the global league of eSports champions since 2006. The league arranges the hardest and most popular competitions in Counter-Strike, StarCraft 2 and QuakeLive. eSports champions from Europe, Asia and America struggle for $400,000 in prize money - the most lucrative prize purse globally. Live tournaments at the worlds largest IT- and Gaming conventions feature the top performers of the season - global stars in eSports. The league will have its exciting final on CeBIT 2011, finding the top teams and players in the Intel® Extreme Masters World Championship.ESL's web-TV service, ESL TV, presents the best games of the season live and reports directly from the live events.

Further information about the Intel Extreme Masters at www.intelextrememasters.com

Intel Corporation

Intel (NASDAQ: INTC), the world leader in silicon innovation, develops technologies, products and initiatives to continually advance how people work and live. Additional information about Intel is available at www.intel.com/pressroom and blogs.intel.com

Turtle Entertainment GmbH

Turtle Entertainment is a leading gaming company in the field of competitive gaming and electronic sports. Founded in the year 2000 the company is currently offering its services in more then 37 countries including the US and China. Core of Turtle's services is it's online portal called Electronic Sports League (ESL) which became a highly popular destination site for competitive computer gamers around the world. The portal reaches up to ten million visits a month (IVW) generated by more than 2,8 million registered users. Turtle Entertainment broadcasts ESL events via ESL TV, ESL's web-TV service, since 2007. The headquarter has 135 employees and is located in Cologne, Germany. Turtle Entertainment owns the majority of the Chinese eSports league PGL (Pro Gamer League) since 2007. Important business partners of Turtle Entertainment are global corporations such as Intel, Deutsche Post, Dell, Volkswagen, Sennheiser, ASUS, Microsoft, adidas, TrendMicro, SteelSeries, Supermicro, gamed.de and Blizzard Entertainment. Turtle Entertainment markets its products worldwide using these specific brands: Electronic Sports League (ESL), ESL Pro Series, Intel Extreme Masters, ESL Major Series, European Nations Championship (ENC), ESL TV, Consoles Sports League, eSport Schulmeisterschaft, eSports Award, ESL Female and ESL Sports.

Further information is available at www.turtle-entertainment.com

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All links at a glance:

- Further information about the Intel Extreme Masters World Championship at: www.intelextrememasters.com

- High resolution photos from the event at www.turtle-entertainment.com/Dateien/Cebit_2011.zip

- Videos from the event at www.youtube.com/IntelExtremeMasters

- VODs of the World Championship matches at http://tv.esl.eu/de/vod/

- Further information about the ESL Pro Series at www.eslproseries.de

- Further information about Electronic Sports League at www.esl.eu

- Further information about Turtle Entertainment at: www.turtle-entertainment.com

- Company Trailer Turtle Entertainment GmbH (browser flash movie): http://files.turtle-entertainment.de/videos/eslpromo.html

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