The remaining matches of Group A are postponed to be played after the matches of group B due to technical issues.

Quake fans around the world are glued to their seats as the world championship finals of ESL's Intel Extreme Masters season IV kicks off today. After qualifiers and tournaments around the globe twelve of the world's best players are currently gathered in Cologne, Germany to compete in the biggest QuakeLive event up to date.

Serious / Razer is represented at the event by two players:

Alexey 'Cypher' Yanushevsky, currently ranked 1st worldwide, he is the reigning ESWC world champion Quake, a former QuakeCon champion in QuakeLive and the winner of the European edition of the Intel Extreme Masters.

As well as Maciej 'Av3k' Krzykowski, currently ranked 3rd worldwide, Av3k is the reigning Quake 4 world champion, the youngest ESWC world champion ever as well as the reigning champion of Dreamhack, he took second place at the European edition of the Intel Extreme Masters.

Today will be Av3k's day as he has been seeded in group A, the group of death, and will have to take down a host of professional gamers if he wants to qualify for the play-off phase. The schedule looks as followed:

12:30 CET (matchlink) - Av3k 2-0  Stermy. Stermy is a seasoned professional gamer as he has been a very active particpant on the pro circuit since 2005 where he took 3rd place at the CPL world tour finals. The match is streamed and is watchable at tv.esl.eu. 

13:10 CET (matchlink) - Av3k 0-2 Rapha. Rapha is currently ranked 2nd worldwide and has been the dominant QuakeLive player of the past year, winning QuakeCon as well as the first IEM event. Only in the past few months has he shown any signs of being challengeable. The match is streamed and is watchable at tv.esl.eu.

13:30 CET (matchlink) - Av3k faces Jibo. Jibo has been a pro Quake player for years now and consistently dominates Asian events. He won the Asian Extreme Masters in convincing fashion and showed himself up to par with both Cypher and Cooller (ranked 4 worldwide) at the most recent ASUS Cup in Moscow.

14:10 CET (matchlink) - Av3k faces Chance. Chance took third place at the American edition of the Extreme Masters.

14:50 CET (matchlink) - Av3k faces Cooller. Cooller is a two-fold ESWC world champion and has a complicated relationship with Av3k. The young Pole used to cite Cooller as a source of inspiration in the early days of his career but has seen him turn into a main rival as the two competed at many tournaments including the finals of ESWC 2007 (won by Av3k) and the semi-finals of IEM Europe. This match is streamed and watchable at tv.esl.eu.

Cypher's group B will be played out tomorrow. If both players pass the groups they will both see action in the play-off phase of day 3!