AVault is carrying an interview with the CPL president Angel Munoz asking about the upcoming Gateway challenge which is a nationwide tournament being held at all the Gateway country stores.

Stomped has an interview with the CPL president Angel Munoz concerning the recently announced national tournament in cooperation with Gateway using Midtown Madness.

Gateway has sent out a press release that it is apparently holding "The World's Largest Computer Game Tournament" in all 320 of its Gateway Country stores, and the CPL is organizing and managing it. So you better hone up your skills for... umm... Midtown Madness 2? Ok, well anyway, here's a snip about the prizes:

In each of four age groups, 570 prizes will be awarded -- 2,280 winners will receive prizes ranging in value from $50 to $8,000. In total, more than $300,000 in prizes will be presented.

...

During the first weekend of competition, gamers with the highest score in four age groups at each Gateway Country store will receive a $50 gift certificate. Following the second round of play, the highest score nationwide in each age group from the combined weekends will be awarded a certificate for the purchase of a personalized Gateway PC powered by the new Intel® Pentium 4 processor and $5,000.

To encourage participation by all family members, prizes will be awarded in all four categories: ages 6-9, 10-13, 14-18 and ages 19 and up. On Saturday, Nov. 4 and Saturday, Nov. 11, contestants ages 6-9 and 10-13 are invited to compete. On Sunday, Nov. 5 and Sunday, Nov. 12 contestants ages 14-18, and 19 and up will be invited to race. A contestant does not have to play in both rounds to qualify for the final prizes.

Yeah more pro gaming. Impossible to avoid this stuff around here. Still seems kinda silly in some respects but I'm loving it. AVault has put together a chronology of pro gaming which of course does just that. From humble beginnings to reaching a national audience in just a few years. The next $100,000 CPL tournament in December may actually be covered by ESPN2. Also currently BattleTop is just finishing up their worldwide invitational tourney the WCGC.

...will Battle Top be able to sustain itself into a second year, or are the World Cyber Games a one-hit wonder? What will receive the greater attention: teamplay events or one-on-one? Will gamers start to outgrow Quake?

I think that last question is really the big one. What comes after Quake/UT/CS for all these leagues? Makes a wacky twist when your playing field evolves every year or two.

CPL president/founder Angel Munoz has been interviewed on All Game Radio. In this audio interview he talks about the start of the league, why it has become the success that it has and plans for the future. Thanks Stomped.

After at Boomgames is a video interview with Angel Munoz, founder and president of the CPL, taped at the CPL's FRAG4 event. They talk about the future of the league, team tournaments, what makes pro-gaming a sport and more.

The CPL has announced the $100k Babbage's Tournament (in December) will have a $15,000 Counter-Strike tournament sponsored by Razer. Registration for the main event is required.

An update on the FRAG 4 team tournament. The final 8 have played their matches and clan Kapitol, Eyeballers, r3volution and the Stickmen came out victorious as seen in the live stats. r3v (3rd seed) are now playing the Stickmen who are 2nd seed, and number one seed clan Kapitol plays Eyeballers (5th seed).

Earlier in the day the Doom2 tournament finals were played with Vapor coming in first, Dominus second, and Randy Pitchford of Gearbox in third.

For live coverage visit Cached, XSReality and AVault.

update I see on Cached that r3volution has won their match. Great live updates there, the CPL Eventricity stuff really isn't that great compared to the stats by Netgames USA.

Some updates from the CPL FRAG4 event. No pictures today, not sure what happened. Steve probably forgot to recharge his battery. The finals of the all-female Quake3 tournament happened yesterday, Telefragged has some photos while Cached has demos (Kornelia didn't win for a change). Cached also has more coverage here. The first round of 32 teams is going to kick off today, here are the brackets. Yes clan r3volution actually made it ;) (Steve's clan). As always, XS Reality has their fair share of coverage with match commentary and player interviews. AVault also has continuous coverage, which isn't very surprising since they are owned by the same parent company as the CPL.

Hellhound has a brief interview with Angel Munoz, founder of the CPL. The CPL is behind the big Quake3 tournaments such as the FRAG4 which is happening right now in Dallas.

The CPL has announced that during Frag4, the channels #cpl and #frag4 on irc.enterthegame.com will have score bot coverage of matches, GTV info, live commentary and Q&A with players, organizers and sponsors of the league. #cpl will be for unmoderated chat, #frag4 will be moderated.

With the big CPL FRAG4 tournament less than a week away and the changes that have come up in Quake3 v125 a lot of people are concerned what version CPL will be using in the tourney. Here is word from the CPL:

The CPL announces that it will be using Quake III Arena version 1.17 for the upcoming Frag 4 Team Tournament. Rather than using the new version 1.25 . The CPL is choosing to reward those teams that have practiced using Q3A version 1.17 in anticipation of Frag 4, by not changing the game version on a short notice.Pending further evaluation and feedback from players, the CPL will announce no later than Monday, October 16th what version of Quake III Arena will be used for the Babbages / CPL $100,000 Tournament in December. Send questions or comments directly to the CPL Commissioner Mike Wardwell, at mike@thecpl.com.

A few things for the competitive Quake3 players out there, Firstly the CPL has announced the preliminary team seedings for FRAG4 scheduled for the end of this month. Also, Challenge-World has just released Challenge Pro-Mode v1.0. (Which btw, is not being used by CPL or BattleTop currently). Lastly, QIL Season4 is about to get underway, which features the top 4 seeded teams who will all be participating at FRAG4.

Top ranked CPL player Fatality has been interviewed on All Gamer Radio. The interview is a streaming MP3 format.

The CPL has sent an email saying participants of the Frag4 tournament must sign up with Eventricity before the event. Go to Frag4.com and then hit the Login/Join button in the top bar.

At http://fragthemovie.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank" class="external is a 3 minute trailer of a documentary about the pro gaming Quake scene. It has gameplay footage as well as interviews with Angel Munoz of the CPL, and Killcreek. Nice if you're a fanatic player or interested to see what all those people are doing at a big LAN party.

Cached.net has gotten a hold of some final images of the next upcoming mouse from Razer (who created that Boomslang mouse, and sponsor so many of those CPL tournaments) Looks like it didnt change much since the original concept images at E3.

The official FRAG4 website is now online. (Thanks RiPT). The upcoming CPL Quake3 teamplay tournament giving away $30,000 in cash to the winners. Amazingly I actually plan to compete in this one myself, hot off my 6th place finish in the last CPL tourney I played in um.. how many years ago?

While on the subject of younger people and videogames, the CPL has just announced that starting in 2001 you must be 17yrs old to compete in their tournaments. (Currently its 15). There is also a forum post about this by Angel Munoz. Here ya go:

The CPL announced that commencing on January 1, 2001, all competitors of CPL tournaments that feature ESRB Mature (M) rated games, must be at least 17 years of age.

...the CPL will not allow anyone under the age of 17 to enter an M-rated game tournament, and will require that a verifiable proof-of-age document (i.e. driver's license, birth certificate, etc.) is presented upon check-in.

The CPL also announced that it will launch wide-scale tournaments featuring games with a more general rating, therefore allowing all family members over the age of six participation in the CPL world-class tournaments and events.

That last part = $1million pokemon adventure tournament in 2002!. Lastly, while on the topic of tournaments, The Euro championships have concluded with Russia defeating Sweden. You can read some coverage here, and see the demos here.

The CPL has posted the Frag4 schedule, as well as a document with the general rules of conduct and rules for the tourney.