Written by Mark “wombat” Larsen

With day 3 coming to a close and the long day 4 upon us, it’s time to take a quick look at the matches remaining in the upper bracket and see who’s predicted to move onto the semi-finals.

#1 Sander “Vo0” Kaasjager vs. #41 Tobias “neok” Grieser

Vo0 should win this match pretty easily, especially after watching him dismantle LeXeR. Vo0’s game has improved a lot since the last CPL and I don’t expect anyone to take him down, except for Fatal1ty. Neok was sort of an unknown coming into the tournament, with not many people knowing much about him. The fact that he’s a part of the SK squad shows that the organization had much faith in him becoming successful at PK. After taking down the #8 and #9 seeds in the tournament, he won’t be doing anymore damage in the upper bracket.

Predicted winner: Vo0

#4 Alessandro “Stermy” Avallone vs. #5 Sean “daler” Price

Stermy has easily made his way through to this round, with his hardest competition coming in the single elimination round against Thump4. This will be his first match against a good player, and will give everyone an idea of how much he’s improved since his 4th place finish last CPL. Daler on the other hand beat dj last round, in a match I thought dj would win. However, daler did have some trouble against him, and I don’t think he’s quite ready for a player of stermy’s caliber. Like cha0ticz, I believe he needs another month or so of solid playing to become a top 5 player.

Predicted winner: Stermy

#3 Stephan “SteLam” Lammert vs. #27 Benjamin “zyz” Bohrmann

For the first time this tournament, these 2 SK teammates are forced to play each other. While SteLam may be the most well-known player on the team, he’s definitely not the only skillful one. SteLam took down cha0ticz last round in a very impressive showing, proving that he’s still a top 3 player. Like neok, little was known about zyz’s skill and playing style before the event. Earlier on in the tournament, zyz upset zen and sent him down to the loser’s bracket. Seeing as these 2 players undoubtedly practiced with each other prior to the event, it will be interesting to see if any alternate strategies are used here. If not, then it will be interesting to see how they exploit each other’s weaknesses. Either way, expect an interesting and exciting match!

Predicted winner: SteLam

#2 Jonathan “Fatal1ty” Wendel vs. #26 Johan “Sakh” Hessedahl

What a great rematch we have here. I doubt anyone’s forgotten Sakh’s win over Fatal1ty at his own shootout just the other week. Although that wasn’t a full game, it does show that he has the ability to at least frag him – something that hasn’t been easily done so far. With a very impressive and dominating win over gellehsak, it doesn’t look like anyone will beat Fatal1ty at this event – not even Vo0. That’s right; I’m predicting Fatal1ty to dethrone the current champion of Painkiller. With that being said, I don’t think Sakh has a chance at beating him in a full 15 minute and 0 fraglimit game. Sakh should perform well in the lower bracket though, so don’t count him out just yet.

Predicted winner: Fatal1ty