Dallas, Texas (GotFrag) - Welcome to what some consider the mother of all eSports LAN competition; the CPL Championships. Deep in the heart of Texas lies the center of the universe for the Cyberathlete Professional League. December 16th through December 20th, 2006, the CPL will host what is to be the culmination of a year of triumph, trial, error, unknowns, big announcements, forward progress and countless hours of hard work and play. From eight World Season qualifiers around the globe in preparation for these winter finals in Texas, the stage has been set. Over 500 players from fifty countries will gather this weekend at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Dallas to begin competition for $150,000 cash and the quest for the CPL crown.

The CPL has long been considered to be the standard for professional eSports LAN tournaments with organized competitions dating back to 1997. The fierce competition, the BYOC antics, sponsors, booths, media attention and overall production are legendary. This winter event will be no exception and in fact looks to be the CPL’s best event to date. The tournaments and BYOC area are sold out with over twice as many registered participants as last winter’s event and the stage is set for some great competition. As always, the competition will be complimented by booths and attractions from a host of new sponsors for the CPL including ATI, AMD, Steel Series, Pizza Hut and more, all available to players and spectators alike.

The event will also host workshops, open discussions with industry insiders, a special preview of Cohesion Productions recently completed eSports documentary, a viewing of Serendipity Films’ CS inspired film with prize contest, a revealing of the new Razer Copperhead "CPL" Special Edition Gaming Mouse and more.

The official tournaments consist of two PC games with a $50,000 prize allotted for Quake III and $100,000 for Counter Strike 1.6. The CPL, in alliance with the Video Gaming League, will also host console game promotional tournaments for fun and prizes in games such as Rainbow Six Vegas, Splinter Cell Double Agent, Dead or Alive 4, Tekken 5, and Soul Calibur III and others. Unofficial tournaments will also be held in the BYOC area.

Previous CPL Championships have been host to the very best Counter Strike competitions and teams in the world and this winter event is no different. Returning CPL Winter 2005 champions SK Gaming will be looking to take down Summer 2006 ISC winner Complexity in an international showdown . The two teams will also have to deal with more than fifty of the best CS teams in the world including Pentagram, NiP, Team 3D, Pandemic, g3x, EG, N69/E28 and too many top tier teams to name. The CS competition will be taking on a new format for this winter CPL championship in the form of two group stages, one of 64 teams and one of 32 teams, followed by a 16 team best of three single elimination bracket.

The Quake competitions of CPL past are certainly legendary as well and gave rise to present eSports superstars like Johnathan “Fatal1ty” Wendel. The CPL seeks to rekindle the glory days of Quake with this winter’s Quake III competition and the announcement of Quake III as the official World Season game of 2007. The Quake tournament format will also be two rounds of group play, 128 and 64 players, followed by a 32 player double elimination bracket.

GotFrag will be live at the venue with the most comprehensive online coverage ever for an event of this magnitude. GotFrag will be providing the all normal coverage that we are known for worldwide with live scoreboards, melees, Gamesense statistics, Half-Life TV, GTV, IRC Scorebots, exclusive photo galleries, previews, reviews, match recaps, interviews and much more. In addition to the online coverage our readers are accustomed to, GotFrag TV will make its official debut at the CPL Championships.

GotFrag TV will be providing live streaming coverage of the championship, with expert analysis from the best eSports coverage team and casters in the world. Trevor “Midway” Schmidt, Mark “Jesuit” Cheben, Scott “Sir Scoots” Smith, and the GotFrag TV crew look to provide an unprecedented view of this 2006 Winter CPL Championship with state of the art streaming technology, play by play and color commentary. Live streaming coverage of matches begins Sunday December 17th.

GotFrag TV will be using Octoshape technology to stream video in order to keep video quality at the highest possible level. You can download the plugin HERE. It is extremely easy to install.

The only other requirement in order for Octoshape to work is that you will need to have Java installed, this is mainly a problem for Firefox users, but can be easily corrected by downloading Java HERE.

GotFrag, in partnership with Beckett Media, is also proud to announce the premier of the worlds first and only magazine dedicated to bringing the eSports competitive community to the world. eSports Gamer magazine will makes its debut with a collectors issue to be given away free to all who attend the 2006 CPL Winter Championship.

The full Viewers Guide including tournament schedule, HLTV, GTV and scorebot information can be found on the next page.