After an enthralling first week which saw Swedish 1.6 legend Emil 'HeatoN' Christensen take the glory and the gold we can now reveal the participants for week 2 of the Rush Poker Challenge.

For anyone who hasn't been following the goings on or isn't familiar with the Rush Poker concept the premise is simple, it's poker on steroids. Instead of the long, drawn-out hands and excruciating waits once players fold a hand they will be thrown straight back into it on another table, meaning there's no waiting around for the hand to end. It's a revolutionary poker format available only on Full Tilt Poker and each week 4 e-sports luminaries will be trying their hand at the game, with the aim of qualifying for the grant final of the Rush Poker Challenge.

This week see's some interesting characters step up to the plate, including Enemy Territory superstar Mikko 'Vanhaomena' Taskinen, a jack of all TF2 related trades and current ButtonBashers captain Marco 'mvp.' Wichmann, Team Dignitas owner and former king of BF1942 Michael 'ODEE' O'Dell and the man behind our sister site Tek9 Steven 'dfb' Leunens.

So, will mvp. be bashing more than buttons? Can Vanhaomena port his aggressive playstyle to the poker world? Will ODEE be heading to Dignitas and can Steven Tek more than 9 hands?

The only way to find out is to head over to the Rush Poker Challenge website.

The date to sign up to TLR's eSports Challenge is just around the corner. Signups open on the 1st of March, we've already had multiple teams contact us to advise their payments are ready. To ensure we do not overbook any teams, the sign up procedure will be very simple and clear - it will still be on a first come, first serve basis.

On Tuesday the 1st of March, A Signups open post will be released here on crossfire, the announcement should happen around 19:00 CET - only one person should sign up their team, to avoid complications teams should decide who will be available to sign up at the time and date.

Once we have all 16 teams signed up, they will be mailed a full form with information we need as well as payment details for the event. Get your teams organised now so you don't miss out on your chance to participate at the event.

After days of delays, madness, chaos, flame and some awesome games the time has come. The time for Grand Final and 3rd place game of 2011 ET Allstars event. We already know that South already secured place in the Grand Final which will take place today and we also know that North will fight for 3rd place. Everything is open for East and West though. Today at 20:00 CET those 2 teams will fight for right to play in Grand Final and try to get revenge on South.

Today we will see the end of the first series in the Esports Heaven Full Tilt Poker Challenge as the Quake Live Team Deathmatch finals will be played. In the past month and a half we've seen some amazing matches as the TDM scene is slowly awakening from the years of hibernation.

We are back with another Team Dignitas Sunday Cup! This time it is Vibe Energy Gum who have taken the role of title sponsor for this cup as they will be supplying the winner with a whole box of Vibe Energy Gum. The tournament will be an Enemy Territory cup hosted Sunday February 20th at 19:00 CET. The last ET tournament we hosted was a 5on5 invite only tournament. This time we decided to take another direction and host a 2on2 tournament with 64 public slots.



The signup system has been altered, you can no longer signup by email. Instead you can signup by making a comment on the Team Dignitas site newspost with your name, nation and IRC nickname. You are expected to idle #dignitas.cup on mIRC (Quakenet) 30 minutes before the cup starts!

Tournament Details
Game: Enemy Territory 2on2
Mappool: Supply, Goldrush, Adlernest, Frostbite
Teams: 64
Cup date: Sunday February 20th
Prize: a box of Vibe Energy Gum
Starting time: 19:00 CET at #dignitas.cup
Brackets: TBA
IRC: #dignitas.cup
Admin: Sui

Rules & info: http://www.team-dignitas.net/2011/2/14/vibe-energy-gum-sunday-cup-13-et/11351/

Finally, after weeks of waiting, schedule madness and poll which gave us our captains, here is the moment you've all been waiting for - announcement of the lineups. But first of all, there's been little change in captains. ENSAM resigned from his duties and will be replaced by phyzic, who got 2nd place in poll. Now let's take a look at choices of our captains.

TLR have announced a mapping competition for Enemy Territory, the aim will be for the map to be played at the upcoming TLR eSports Challenge event in early July.

After contacting well known and experienced scene members, Clown, crumbs, drago, Jere, mztik, numeric, R0SS, urtier, Vanhaomena and Owzo. Our 'mapping panel' answered some questions for us regarding a potential new map for Enemy Territory.

After recent problems with schedule, everything seems to be going well. Your votes have been counted and captains have been elected. Each fight wasn't exactly tight, winners were quite obvious. Without further intro let's have a look at results.

It's already standard in the MMO-Genre (and in Action Games too) to start a big Beta test before the release of a game. But Splashdamage really doesn't want to do so. They want that only professional gamers with knowledge search some faults in BRINK.

As Richard Ham, Director of SplashDamage, says:

Quote

In BRINK we decided to do a closed beta and to give the beta gamers who know what they do.

followed by a good reason:

Quote

Betas are very important! But they have to be done professionally. If we don't give the game to hundrets of gamers with their own ideas and impressions, we never know enough to release a perfect game. At the same time, some Betas gets simply abused as marketing tools and some gamers use a beta like a demo version and expect that everything is already finished and fixed.

Source: nowgamer.com, vg247.com