Sunday May18th - Time for the Nationals.

On Sunday morning the weather had cleared and we had sunny skies and a strong cool breeze coming off the Pacific. Matt and Johnny were in the game center well before game time to work on their strategies and many of the top players from Saturday’s event accompanied them for support and practice. By noon the tournament had started and the players had their game faces on.

IPC: The 'Brackets'

IPC: Mark Nielsen from iGames flips a coin between David Mulka and Saul Estrada for map selection.

IPC: Gamers get their match on.

The two top players from each of the 8 centers were all poised for their chance to take home the top prize. For those of you who follow WC3 tournaments the list included some familiar names.

• >> Click here to view the complete Nationals brackets and download their .w3g match replays

• From Academy Gaming in Fort Collins Colorado there were Matt Schlenker and Jae “PerFume.WeST” Lim.

• From Combat zone in Oak Ridge Texas there were David “rS.Suboshi” Lynch and Ian “sleepz” Heller.

• From E2 Café - FIU in Miami Florida there were Cheyne “Newbiee[cF]” Seleski and Matthew “mTw-Wizard” Anderson.

• From Head2Head Games in London Ontario there were Ben “2d.neans” Wong and Dave “2d.txpro” Mastrobuono.

• From Internet PC Café - Nuritech there were Matt “eTched[pG]” Carrier and Johnny “[pG]CareLess” Huang.

• From LanWerX Bellevue in Bellevue Washington there were Homan “inferno_rice” Leung and Weosol “SK.SeaWeed” Seo.

• From Nerve Center Café in Surrey British Columbia there were Taavo “Tazz” Ruberg and Lester “darkT” Lu.

• From web2zone in New York City there were Phi Phung “Qazzi” Tran and Jeff “Aether” Zhang.

IPC: Quarter Finalists: Jimmy Escobar, Johnny Huang, Saul Estrada, David Malka, Matt Carrier, Donovan Roche, Dennis Chan and Kevin Ko (not in any specific order)

IPC: Total concentration when there’s $2k on the line

IPC: Semi Finalists: David Malka, Matt Carrier, Dennis Chan and Johnny Huang.

It is difficult at best to predict the outcome of a tournament like this, especially when the stakes are so high. By late Sunday evening, most of the players in the LA center had been eliminated with [pG]CareLess taking fourth place overall. eTched[pG] was confident going in, but a dispute with SK.SeaWeed over who had the first choice of maps threw his concentration and he erroneously selected a map in game one that did not give him a race advantage. This error caused him to lose the first game and SK.SeaWeed came through to knock him out in game 2.

Overall we had a great tournament in LA. The competitors all had a good time and want to extend their gratitude to ATI, ABIT, Intel, Western Digital, ViewSonic, KIA and Kingston for putting together what turned out to be a fun time for all.

IPC: Dennis Chan eliminated David Malka to capture 3rd Place and an ATI 9600.

IPC: Johnny “[pG]CareLess” Huang wins second place and an Abit IC7 Max3 motherboard equipped with 512Mbytes of Kingston RAM.

IPC: Matt “eTched[pG]” Carrier nails first place and wins an ATI 9800XT.

IPC: Johnny and Matt win the right to compete for the North American Championship, $2,000 and an all expense paid trip to Shanghai.

IPC: Dennis and David shake hands after a hard fought battle for 3rd.

IPC: CareLess[pG] looking confident during the online portion having beaten his first opponent Homan Leung

IPC: eTched[pG] is eliminated in the first round after mistakenly selecting a map he had not intended to play, thereby losing his map selection advantage. He is knocked out by SK.SeaWeed in two straight games.

IPC: CareLess[pG] battling in round two of the online portion of the tournament. Ultimately CareLess[pG] takes 4th place in the North American contest.