The first session of the Munster Super League for Super Street Fighter 4 players took place in the Moviedrome in Limerick on Saturday 19th June. Six players were in attendance and a league format was used. DooM proved his dominance with Guile, and ensured the trip from Dublin was not a wasted one, by going undefeated. Orim also made the journey from Dublin to run DooM close but a single defeat to the session winner forced Orim to settle for 2nd. FutureGuy finally broke the trend as a local player by taking 3rd.

Session 2 has been announced. This will take place on Saturday 26th June from 13:00 GMT. Once again, the tournament will cost €8. 

Prize: Bragging rights from session, €2 goes into prize fund for end of season, €1 goes into travel fund for end of season (train ticket to Dublin for finals).

Points Format:
Attendance - 1 point
Win (groups / league) - 2 points
1st - 10 points
2nd - 8 points
3rd - 6 points
4th - 4 points
5-8th - 2 points

After an extended hiatus, the Midlans crew is pleased to announce a 2010 edition of the LAN. Midlans 2010 (20-22 August 2010) will take place at the Streete Community Centre in County Westmeath. There are 400 player spaces available with a weekend of fun, games and tournaments promised.

The event will cost €30 to attend although those who are interested in attending specifically for the Street Fighter tournament are entitled to a discount and will pay €20. A number of tournaments are to be run with more to be unveiled in the run-up to the LAN. Games to be played over the course of the weekend are not limited to the tournament games and will include titles such as Battlefield, Unreal Tournament, Supreme Commander 2 and Quake 3 Arena among many others.

Source: Midlans

The Electronic Sports World Cup has released a list of invited players and teams for the upcoming Grand Finals which take place at Disneyland (30th June - 4th July 2010). The invites are to cover countries that will not have a national qualification tournament. The invite list covers all games that are to be played at the Grand Finals including Quake Live, Counter-Strike (Male & Female), Trackmania, Street Fighter 4, Warcraft 3, Defence of the Ancients, Guitar Hero 5 and Need For Speed Shift. Among the invited players is Ireland's Trackmania star, Seán 'HotSwat' Walsh who represented Ireland at last year's World Cyber Games finals in China.

Source: ESWC

Invite List:
Trackmania:
Bergie (NO)
gaLLo (DE)
Moriah (PT)
Tamarillo (NL)
PeZi (AT)
Fruit (AT)
HotSwat (IE)
Munkeholm (DK)

Quake Live:
DaHanG (US)
K1llsen (DE)
Stermy (IT)
Noctis (AT)
Sl1p (ES)
Dem0n (BE)

...to be determined. After a late venue change earlier in the week, the  Irish EVO 2010 qualifiers were cancelled at the very last minute. The qualifier was due to take place on May 29th but, as a result of a low turnout, the tournament was cancelled outright. Now the question is whether Ireland will have a seeded player participating in EVO 2010 ( Las Vegas, 9-11 July 2010).

The EVO qualifier may take part next week as part of Inferno 10 (June 5th in Xtreme Gaming Centre, Dublin). This subject is still up for debate.

Inferno 10 Details:
Date: 5th June 2010
Time: 13:30 GMT
Entry Fee: €15
Venue: Xtreme Gaming Centre, Dublin
Game: Super Street Fighter IV
Other Notes: Unseeded (First tournament for Super Street Fighter IV)

Links:
EVO Discussion: boards.ie
Inferno 10 Discussion: boards.ie

JuneLAN, to be hosted at The Netcafé in  Longford, has been confirmed. The LAN will kick off at 20:00 GMT on June 5th and conclude at 16:00 GMT on June 7th. It has been suggested that this could be the last LAN hosted at The Netcafé which looks to be closing in a matter of weeks. Cherryghost has stated that he would like to "go out with a bang".

Entry:
15 euro BYOP
20 Euro rent a PC (8 available)

Games (will include but not limited to):
Battlefield Bad Company 2
Call of Duty 4
Modern Warfare 2
Team Fortress 2
Counter Strike Source
Dawn of War
Crysis Wars
Trackmania
Company of Heroes
Left 4 Dead 2
Halo
Street Fighter IV

Links:
Event Signup
Event Group
Discussion: boards.ie

 Ireland's EVO 2010 Qualifier featuring Super Street Fighter IV is scheduled to take place on Saturday, May 29th 2010. The  Xtreme Gaming Centre (Liffey Street, Dublin) has been confirmed as the venue after unforeseen circumstances forced a move away from  Gamesnash Live. Entry to the tournament costs €20 with the winner earning a trip to Las Vegas to participate in EVO 2010.

Event Schedule:
Registration and casual play starts 12.30pm
Registration and casual play closes 1.30pm
Tournament starts at 2pm
Tournament ends 6pm.
Presentation 6.30pm
Close 7pm

Links:
Source: Streetfighter.ie
Discussion: boards.ie

A discussion regarding the recently released eSports Yearbook (2009) will take place tonight on XFire. A debate regarding eSports will get proceedings underway at 18:00 GMT with editors Julia Christophers and Tobias Scholz, and writers Matthias Beyer, David Hiltscher, Lari Syrota, Konstantin Bös and Christian Exner involved. This debate will be followed by a Q&A session in which everyone is invited to ask questions about the groups passion for eSports. This Q&A session will begin at 19:00 GMT. Prizes are to be given out to some participants. To join the XFire group, click here.

The eSports Yearbook is available for free download or can be purchased from Amazon (~ €15.00). The yearbook features stories from around the world and from eSports at all levels. Included are stories from professionals such as Stermy and Grubby along with lesser known cultures such as Ireland and Belgium. The stories range from the closure of tournaments and memorable experiences to personal thoughts and opinions. One thing that remains consistent throughout the book and each story is the passion and dedication that flows within each person involved in this project and in eSports in general. It has been a challenging period for eSports with marketing budgets being slashed, a point that is picked up on throughout the yearbook, but the passion demonstrated will see eSports come out the other side in one piece.

Links:
Download eSports Yearbook
Download XFire
Join eSports Yearbook XFire Group

The newly launched Streetfighter.ie is pleased to announce a competition with a little bit of diversity. The 'Day of Champions' will feature four fighting games and all in the name of charity. The Day of Champions will take place on May 22nd and each tournament will kick off at 14:00 GMT. Participants are advised to arrive early to register their interest and warm up beforehand.

Attendance will cost €5 for console rental with each tournament costing €1 to enter. Proceeds will go to charity but there is a special €20 prize to anyone that can place top three in three tournaments. 

Tournament Games:
Marvel vs Capcom 2
Blazblue
Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo
Soul Calibur 4

The Xtreme Gaming Centre, Dublin will host the event. 

Links:
Source: Streetfighter.ie
Discussion: boards.ie

Phantom-Gaming,  an Irish run gaming clan, are searching for Irish Counter-Strike: Source players. The aim is to create a completely Irish Counter-Strike: Source team to compete in online leagues, tournaments and LANs. Any player interested in getting involved or participating on the team should visit the Phantom-Gaming website. The team Administrators can be contacted via the Phantom-Gaming Steam Page.

The first Starcraft 2 British & Irish Open has been announced. An online tournament will be held every Thursday at 19:00 GMT, beginning on May 7th. Every fifth tournament will act as a Grand Final featuring the four previous winners. The aim of the British & Irish Open is to "unite the scene and create a solid foundation for future events like LANs, show matches and some oh so secret international events!". Signups are accepted on this TeamLiquid thread.

The tournament features a straightforward Best-Of-One single elimination bracket until the fourth round when matches are played as a Best-Of-Three. The final will be played as a Best-Of-Five with the winner claiming a spot in the Grand Final. If a player wins two events, the next highest finisher that has not qualified for the Grand Final will earn the place. 

Tournament Information:
Date: Every Thursday from 6th May-3rd June
Time: 7:00pm BST
Players: 64 player maximum
Location: European SC2 Bnet servers.
Structure: Regular Single Elimination (BO1 until Final 4, Bo3 semis and 3rd place, Bo5 finals).
Admins: flicky.fij, Vilda.vilda
Prizes: Winner gains a place in the monthly Grand Final
IRC: #B&I-SC2 on Quakenet. Webclient link here
Liquipedia 2: First B&I Open
Replay Submissions:: Players must submit their replays to Brit.sc2(at)googlemail.com
Livestream: http://www.livestream.com/emperorscourt

Source: TeamLiquid

Super Street Fighter IV is set to be released in  Ireland on April 30th and to celebrate this occasion, a "launch party" has been organised in the Xtreme Gaming Centre on May 1st. The event will get underway at noon and will conclude at 20:00 GMT. In addition to casual matches, a new character tournament will also be run. The winner of this tournament will receive a limited edition street fighter T-Shirt and a copy of Super Street Fighter IV provided by Capcom. The entire day, including the tournament, is free to attend and participate in.

Source: boards.ie

The Street Fighter 4 segment of the third Dragonslayers Ranking Battles season has concluded after seven sessions. It was all to play for heading into the final event with a number of competitors in the running for the title. Once again, Queens University Belfast played host to the event which was run as part of Slayers 24.

With fierce competition, the event was always going to produce some unexpected results and close contests. The big loser of the event was Cobelcog who faced the group of death featuring Chopperbyrne, Chunkis and Kalisto. Kalisto went on to the grand final after facing testing encounters with The Truth, Chunkis and fake_roogle. Dreddybajs fell early in the bracket to Newtype but held his nerve as he progressed through the lower bracket. Blag, Chunkis, The Truth and fake_roogle were eliminated by Dreddybajs on his way to the grand final. Kalisto went on to win in the grand final and pick up his first tournament win in Belfast.

Newtype has been crowned the season champion after finishing with 53 points. The Truth (50 points) and Cobelcog (46 points) rounded out the top three.

Source: boards.ie