By DvO:

With the UT2004 tournament nearly finished after only 2 days, it's time for a quick look back on the events and key matches of the past days. As everyone was sure to notice, the first group stage turned out to be quite a thriller, especially in Group C, the group of death. Lauke came out unscathed, but following him was a 3-way tie. Unfortunately, the exceptionally strong astz did not get through, as the tournament admins chose to count map-wins for and against instead of playing tiebreaker games. This meant that underdog donnie made it through to the second group stage.

In the other groups, the expected favourites made it through, and poster companion TheRogue's predictions were right for most of the way. With hypno edging out a close second group stage spot in group A, he was perhaps one of the more unexpected results in the 1st group stage. Group B saw winz and ECG winner devilmc make it through, while group D sent Zeta packing.

In the second group stage, things got really interesting, and the surprise of the day was winz pushing it up at least 7 notches, racking up insane kill after insane kill with the shock rifle. He cruised through the second group stage in a very tough group, seeing Falcon come out bruised but not broken. In the other group, Lauke was still in form, going unbeaten through the groups, followed by a three-way tie for 2nd place. Eventually, map-wins made it clear that devilmc was going to come second in the group and go on to face winz in the single-elimination semi-finals.

In the semi-finals, the highlight was the match between Falcon and Lauke, a match in which the first map, Roughinery, went in a convincing fashion to the Dutchman, but gave rise to a second map that was the lowest scoring in the whole tournament so far. In the entire 15 minutes, neither player scored a single frag, although the Austrian was playing very well and locking down Ironic, Lauke managed to hold on into overtime, where he got surprised from behind and lost, 1-0.

The last map ended up being a favourite of Falcon's, Lea, and it showed as he took an early lead with amazing prediction combos. The reigning world champion wasn't discouraged, and came back quickly, capitalizing to make it a 3-point game in his advantage. Yet again, the map went to overtime, and as Falcon clawed his way into control, 2 minutes into the game, Lauke made a fatal mistake that cost him the match, 6-7 to Falcon, who will play the grand final tomorrow on stage.

In the other match, devilmc took a win on Ironic by 1 frag, forcing winz to step it up, winning on Rankin by several frags and forcing it to a tiebreaker. With the Frenchman's aim improving every map, the last map turned into a real blowout, as the young player put in a 3-0 score in the first 3 minutes, keeping a multiple frag all through the game. Tomorrow, we see the final between two aAa players, Falcon and winz, while today a very disgruntled Lauke will face the player that cost him the ECG title at the beginning of the year, devilmc.

It's a shame the UT tournament is ending so early, as there are surely many people waiting to see more great matches, but the demos should be appearing on sites around the world, such as UnrealNorth in the very near future. That's all for now, full match report of the final and bronze final tomorrow and tonight respectively.