The ESL Pro Series Scandinavia should be resumed after the Christmas break, but no match will be played today due to HaHa being removed from the running ESL Pro Series Scandinavia. The team did not have premium for the whole duration of the tournament so far, did not announce a new fifth player and will most likely not even continue playing.

AndThenSome have announced the addition of Tino "tihOp" Puumala after playing with him for several weeks as a replacement for Marko "kind" Nenonen. Puumala was removed from GamePlay in late 2008 as lurppis returned in his place. Shortly after he had his debut with ATS.fi in the ESL Extreme Masters III.

As rumoured for quite a long time, Roman "roman" Ausserdorfer is now back with Team Alternate and has therefore left TBH. He is replacing Martin "fleks" Wehrmann, who left the scene a few weeks ago to focus on his studies and real life. Roman was removed earlier from Alternate due to his attitude towards practicing.

The ambitious Danish team of dakarma have announced changes to their roster for 2009. Marc "bimz" Jensen is leaving the team while they will try out Christian "turkizh" Bindslev in their upcoming matches. The team is currently attending the ESL Extreme Masters Season III as well as the Danish ESL Amateur Series.

With 2009 just begun, we announce a few changes regarding the SK Ladies team. Jane "jane" Wie and Christine "potter" Chi are leaving the team but a new fifth is about to be announced.

The countdown finished on January 1st 2009 at 20:00 revealing the Ultimate Gaming Tour with several professional gamers participating. Still everyone can sign up to attend the several 1v1 shootouts in cities all over Sweden and a prize money of 100.000 SEK (~9.217€).

Not much has been revealed yet but SteelSeries is planning something big, especially if you're into winning. Pictures pop up every day at www.ugt.se being refreshed at 20:00 CET until January 1st 2009.

As rumoured Team Alternate are changing players at the end of the year with Martin "fleks" Wehrmann leaving not only Alternate, but is now focusing on studies. One of the favorites to get the fifth spot is again Roman "roman" Ausserdorfer who is currently playing for Team Bavarian Heaven and is still contracted which seems to be the problem right now.

Shortly before Christmas KODE5 have announced their Germany qualifiers which includes two invite only qualifiers and two regular qualifiers for everyone to sign up. The Regional Final will be played in March 2009 with the top eight teams attending.

Virtus Pro have decided to go back to an All Russian lineup by removing the Ukrainian players Edward, Zeus and Kane to recruit dinGo, hooch and Xenitron. With these changes, it is likely that also Amazing Gaming picks up one of the Ukrainian players after their recent changes.

Former player and also coach of Made in Brazil returns to the team in hopes of achieving better results than the team has had lately. Being removed is Bruno "bit" Lima, with Renato "nak" Nakano no longer captaining the team, as KIKOOOO will take over the part of captain and in-game leader.

ESL announced more details to the Extreme Masters Season III Continental Finals and Global Finals. They moved the Continental Final Europe from Hamburg to Hannover, merging both the Continental Final as well as the Global Final to be held at the CeBIT in March 2009. The CeBIT event will reward a total of $280,000 USD for Counter-Strike and World of Warcraft.

ESL announced more details to the Extreme Masters Season III Continental Finals and Global Finals. They moved the Continental Final Europe from Hamburg to Hannover, merging both the Continental Final as well as the Global Final to be held at the CeBIT in March 2009. The CeBIT event will reward a total of $280,000 USD for Counter-Strike and World of Warcraft.

Only one day after the Rekrut.ru Championship 2008 where Amazing Gaming placed third, Dmitri "hooch" Bogdanov has parted ways with the Ukrainian team. This leaves the team with only three players and a possible fourth, with Arseniy "Esenin" Trynozhenko, after the cup.

The whole of the Rekrut.Ru Championship 2008 was played on Sunday with a group stage and a double elimination bracket afterwards. A few upsets were made, such as Alternate being knocked out as soon as they entered the play-offs as well as GamePlay following them. Still, mTw won the tournament overall against Virtus and A-Gaming, who placed third.

Only a few weeks ago it was announced that the CGS was closing down immediately, leaving the teams and brands with basically nothing. The Counter-Strike team of compLexity had started to play Counter-Strike 1.6 again months ago already and can now focus on doing so in TeamEG, picking up Jordan "n0thing" Gilbert for Ronald "Rambo" Kim.

The invited teams have arrived and another eight teams qualified from the local qualifier on Saturday which were now divided up into four groups with four teams each. It looks like there will be no HLTV due to the Russian organisers using an old version of Counter-Strike (Protocol 47) and therefore you won't be able to watch it with the newest version of Counter-Strike.

A few days ago KODE5 announced their Australia qualifiers, now they also launch KODE5 in Serbia with an online qualifier and an offline final. Sixteen teams will be able to qualify for the regional final which will be played at the KGB Gaming Club to determine the Serbia winner who will advance to the KODE5 global final.

Both Spanish top teams, k1ck and x6tence, exchanged players, with Daniel "furby" Frias being replaced by Rafael "FeldmaN" Rodriguez Barroso in x6tence. Shortly after that was announced, k1ck recruited furby after FeldmaN left his team.

KODE5 is part of the biggest tournaments of the year and has dozens of qualifiers around the world for everyone to participate in. They have now also announced KODE5 Australia, with several qualifiers all over Australia and a regional final, giving one team the chance to go to the global final.