Controversy hits cooller vs. strenx semifinal match

When it seemed like the IEM European Finals event would complete without a hitch (not counting the minor delay and stream issues on the first day), controversy has reared its ugly head.

In the Quake Live semifinal match with cooller and strenx, both players started experiencing significant lag spikes with about two and a half minutes to play. At this point of the game, strenx had built an advantage of a few frags. Cooller began to put together a comeback after the time that the lag began affecting the game and eventually pulled in front with a 6-5 lead. The players had asked for an admin to pause the match, but the pause didn't come. In a statement made on the broadcast, ESL's Michael "Carmac" Blicharz noted that the players should have paused the match themselves. ESL TV's Joe Miller, the match broadcaster, requested a pause himself by typing in-game, but to no avail. Eventually, nearly two minutes later, the match is finally paused by the admin but with only 27 seconds left in the match.

Minutes after the pause, a decision came from referees to continue the game. Shortly afterwards, however, the power in the entire arena completely cut off for a few seconds, causing all computers to power down, along with everything else in the building.

This presented an even worse problem than the first one regarding the lag spikes and the delayed timeout. After nearly half an hour of deliberation, Blicharz confirmed via the ESL TV broadcast that the match will be recreated as close as possible to the situation that it was left in when the match was paused and the subsequent power failure. This includes everything from the weapons that each player had, ammunition counts, armors and position on the map (and in strenx's case, his spawn position, as he had just been fragged when the timeout came).

The 27 second match will be played after the first StarCraft 2 semifinal so as to not further delay the tournament.