A special 40th edition of the French 4Q4 Cup will be played today as the organizers have put together a special Invitational Cup. Sixteen superb players from all over Europe have been selected to participate.

At the forefront of the list of prominent duelers is ESWC champion Michael "winz" Bignet. Bignet returns to the scene with his first Quake 4 event since his infamous performance at the Intel Summer Championships, where he placed 33-64th after two straight early losses to Americans Rafik "LoSt-CaUzE" Bryant and Evan "Nomadic" Bradshaw.

"I feel good, many people are happy to see me playing again", Bignet tells GotFrag.com before the big event. "I haven't practiced that much, just a few games against random players. I guess I'll have a lot of hard games but I can make top 3 IMO."

Bignet's comeptition will be fierce today with multiple competitors who are capable of reminding him of his ISC adventure. Among the competitors are Evolve-Gaming Cup #4 winner Gareth "GaRpY" Marshall, runner-up Mikael "ahzaz" Jonsson, Belgium TDM star Yannick "impulse" Bovy and Poland's upcoming Tobiasz "deral" Kaczorowski, all hungry for blood. Previous 4Q4 Cup winner Pierre "Fahrenheit" Otin will also be in attendance.

The event will once again include the new map of Torment, further pushing new maps into Quake 4's competitive circuit. "Torment looks a good map", tells Bignet after a long break from Quake 4. "I need to play it more to make further judgements." Aside from Bignet, Lindhout, who's forfeited Torment in every event he's played so far, will once again have to deal with new maps.

A group stage with four players in each group will begin the event, followed by a single elimination phase. Matches will be best of one in the group stage and then proceed to best of three during the brackets. Phrantic, Monsoon and Placebo Effect will be played during the group stage, with Torment and Galang added in for the brackets.

Paul "ReDeYe" Chaloner and Joe Miller of the newly formed QuadV station will be providing audio shoutcast of the event. Audio streams can be accessed on their official website.

Q4TV IPs will be posted in the official IRC channel of #4Q4 @ Quakenet. Scorebots can be found in #4Q4 @ Quakenet, #4Q4.live1 @ Quakenet (Group A), #4Q4.live2 @ Quakenet (Group B), #4Q4.live3 @ Quakenet (Group C), #4Q4.live4 @ Quakenet (Group D).

Matches begin at 20:00 CET (3 PM EST). Do not forget to set your Personal Timezone to find out exactly when the matches will be played in your area.

Brackets Can be found on the last page. All demos will be uploaded to GotFrag.com.

(Note: Ivo "forever" Lindhout has dropped from the event due to a split with his management. More information coming shortly.)

4Q4 Cup #39 Final Standings
1. Gareth "dignitas/GaRpY" Marshall
2. Michael "[aAa]winz" Bignet
3-4. Mikael "tek9.ahzaz" Jonsson / Pierre "bl4jnd" Edlund

4Q4 Invitational Grand Finals


4Q4 Invitational Semifinals


4Q4 Invitational Quarterfinals


4Q4 Invitational Cup Group A

4Q4 Invitational Cup Group A Standings


4Q4 Invitational Cup Group B

4Q4 Invitational Cup Group B Standings


4Q4 Invitational Cup Group C

4Q4 Invitational Cup Group C Standings


4Q4 Invitational Cup Group D

4Q4 Invitational Cup Group D Standings

Brackets can be found on the next page.