The MLG Orlando World of Warcraft event was won by the underdogged team Orz with their member Hafu becoming the first woman to win an esports major in a competition with men.

In a male dominated environment Hafu's achievement is impressive, however she is not the first female to give the male competitors a run for their money...

Seo Ji "TossGirl" Su
Game of Expertise: Starcraft

Major Achievements:

#1 4th Ghem TV Women's Starleague (2005)
#1 MBCGame Ladies Starleague (2005)
#1 5th SkyLife GhemTV Women's Starleague (2005)

TossGirl is the Anna Kournikova of StarCraft, flashes of brilliance along with eye catching beauty. The only female pro-gamer to appear on the Korean Television channel MBC in the male leagues, TossGirl sometimes known as medic is also the undefeated champion of female StarCraft.

Playing Protoss early in her career she changed to play Terran as it was "so hard to play against Zerg with Protoss so other people recommended me to play Terran because I have fast hands."

2005 was her year winning two Ghem TV Women's Starleague titles as well as the MBC Starleague title. However her defining moment was knocking out Korean Superstar Yellow out of the WCG Korean preliminaries in 2005. TossGirl is the only female pro-gamer to live among the male pro-gamers which surely contributed to her success.

"My APM [actions per minute] is around 360 [six actions per second) I used to play the piano when I was young so my fingers have been very fast since I was young. It was about 280 when I started, but it increased to 360," said TossGirl in an interview in 2006, "but I don't think you must have high APM to be a good player."

Despite never returning to the limelight of 2005 she still left her mark and her presence on the Korean Starcraft scene. Despite her disappearance from the centre stage, she still plays in the pro-gaming team STX Soul.

Kornelia "Kornelia" Takacs
Game of expertise: Quake3

Major Achievements:

Top 16 QuakeCon 1999

Proclaimed the "Queen of Quake" Kornelia turned heads during the deathmatch boom for her skills in Quake. Kornelia placed top 16 at QuakeCon where the best of the best at Quake pit themselves against one another.

If Johnathan "Fatal1ty" Wendel had a sex change, he would most likely be Kornelia who hosted exhibition matches for the public at E3, an annual trade show for the computer and video games, in 1999, 2000 and 2005.

During one QuakeCon the public also had a chance to take part in the DOOM III Kornelia Challenge which was sponsored by Activision and Alienware.

When asked in an interview by JIVEMagazine if people have a hard time dealing by being beaten by a girl she replied "Nope. They have to deal with it themselves if that is their mindset. If that is how they feel at the end of the match, they will get up and they have two options: shake my hand and walk away or walk away… Most of them shake my hand."

Kornelia traveled America as fragging proof that a female can match the skill of a male player in the FPS genre. Kornelia was forced to cut back her gaming hours due to her job in a film production company but her legacy lives on. You can visit her website here or read JiveMagazine's interview with her here

Alice "ali" Lew
Game of Expertise: Counter-Strike 1.6

Major Achievements:

#5th place ESWC 2004 - (Gx3)
#1st place ESWC 2005 - (Gx3)
#4th place ESWC 2006 - (SK.Ladies)
#1st place ESWC 2007 - (SK.Ladies)
#2nd place ESWC Masters - (SK.Ladies)

The godmother of SK.Ladies Alice "ali" Lew was one of the first females to get acceptance in a male dominated environment for a team game. Most famous for her role in the SK.Ladies, Ali began her Counter-Strike career during the beta in early 2000, eight years ago.

Ali quickly made a name for herself in surrounding LAN in her area, and for the first three years of her career she played in a male team. "A lot of the times I played with my club members from sealteam, probably 50-60% of tournaments I attended in California were with them".

During a stint in MugNMouse at CPL Winter 2005 she also defeat Made in Brazil with male colleagues. It was the early years which helped set her aside from the pack, "I get treated differently than every other girl in America because males give me more respect than any other girl," explains Ali, "I've been around for longer than anyone can remeber and I've played with male teams and made some marks at big tourneys like CPL."

Ali remembers one specific match against lurppis now in team Roccat: "We BYOC'ed also at that CPL and we played lurrpis," reminisces Ali, "and I dropped 30 each half and they could not believe it, and to this day, i still make fun of him."

From 2002 she began focusing on female gaming after she formed Gx3, girls got game, with two other players, mishl and jenny. The team would go on to great things finishing 5th in ESWC 2003 and 1st in ESWC 2005, during the latter the team was film for an MTV documentary after Ali's professionalism at a CPL event had sparked the interest of an MTV director.

In 2006 GX3 became SK.Ladies and the team went onto to finish fourth in ESWC 2006, 1st in ESWC 2007 and 2nd at ESWC Masters 2008. However outside of the annual ESWC tournament Ali continues to train versus male opponents in online leagues and tournaments as well as American offline LANs. Ali has been around since the dawn of competitive Counter-Strike and has proved she can play with the big boys as well as dominate the female scene.

Vanessa "Vanessa" Arteaga
Game of Expertise: Dead or Alive 4
*Photographer: CGS*

Major Achievements

1st place WCG DOA4 Pacific Online
2nd place WCG 2007 US Open
1st place WCG Pan AM

Formerly a member of the PMS clan, Vanessa Arteaga is now a contracted player for the San Francisco Optx, a franchise in the Championship Gaming Series. Her game of choice is Dead or Alive 4 and she is considered to be the strongest female player and was number one draft pick for her Franchise.

The CGS format mean each team has to have one male DoA player and one female but the sexes do not collide, players only compete against players of the same gender.

Vanessa disposes of her female competition consistently and recently lived up to expectations when she traveled to Cancun, Mexico to represent the US in the World Cyber Games 2007 Pan-American Championship.

The event had no restrictions on the division of male and females and Vanessa defeated Emmanuel "Master" Rodriguez 3-2 in the Grand Final to take 1st place, a player who forced her to accept 2nd place at the WCG 2007 US Open.

Vanessa maybe in another sphere of eSports but her skill for her game of choice is legendary, and she looks to continue her reign. You can watch her in action here.

Julia "Crunsher" Numberger
Game of expertise: Counter-Strike 1.6
*Photographer: Daniel Jensen*

Major achievements
n/a

Although perhaps an unknown to those outside of Germany, Julia "crunsher" Numberger was the first female to compete in the ESL Pro Series. Crunsher competed in the EPS Season IX for TNG, she was the only female in her team but soon earned the respect of the German community.

TNG would finish 14th that season but Crunsher returned once more to the EPS two season later when she joined DkH for the Season XI relegation. She helped the team to secure a berth to the prestigious German tournament following the 3rd-4th place in the relegations but was removed from the line-up before the season began.

In August of last year she explained the reasoning behind the removal of herself and two other players Ivan "nriQ" Zorcic and Kevin "r0k" Schmitt, saying it was down to a rift within the team. "The team was split up into two groups, nriQ, r0k and me in one group, and EkuaL and preve on the other group," Crunsher told Gotfrag, "each one trying to create their own playing style."

Although her stay in the EPS was short, she is still remembered for her contribution in the German eSports scene as she was the only female 1.6 gamer in Germany to be really successful in a male team.

Christalynne
Game of expertise: Quake4

Major achievements

Giving Fatal1ty an unexpected surprise

Christalynne is the girl who holds the record for the highest frags against Jonathon "Fatal1ty" Wendel. She competed against him during a Fatal1ty Shootout at QuakeCon 2005, Christalynne was not only a girl gamer, but also only 8-years old.

What where her parents thinking you might say? Aren't FPS games all about blood and guts? Funny you should ask that...

"They recognize the combat in FPS games, like Quake, in the same manner as a board game like chess," explained Christalynne's mother a former member of girl gaming clan QGirls, "It isn't depicting violence, it is a game of strategy."

When asked if other kids her age respect the fact that she plays so many video games that are marketed towards adults Christalynne replied, "They think it is cool I get to play what their Dad plays."

The Frag Dolls
Games of Expertise: Rainbow Six

Major Achievements:

1st place Rainbow Six 3: Black Arrow tournament
1st place Rainbow Six Vegas CPL Winter 2006



Started in early 2004 the Frag Dolls are a team of female gamers recruited by Ubisoft to represent their video games as well as to promote the presence of women in the gaming industry. More specifically the Frag Dolls are essentially a sponsored female clan split into two divisions, an American one which has nine members (pictured above) and a British one which consists of three.

The American Frag Dolls' game of expertise is Rainbow Six winning their first tournament in 2004 for Rainbow Six: Black Arrow. The girls then toured with the Major League Gaming (MLG) in 2005, before winning CPL Winter in 2006 for Ubisoft's new title Rainbow Six Vegas.

They became the first all-female team to win a (co-ed) pro-circuit tournament. Valkyrie, Seppuku, Calyber, and Psyche (all pictured above) proved to be the winning combination for the Ubisoft-sponsored team. They also competed in the now deceased World Series of Video Games (WSVG) in 2006 before going on to enter the Rainbow Six MLG League in 2007.

The girls continue to be advocates for female gamers, speaking on panels at the Women’s Game Conference and all of the Women in Games International conferences since 2006.

Maly's question to you: Will we see women owning men regularly some day?

Previous Maly's Corners

10/7/08 Maly's Corner: Tale of an ESWC Masters
19/6/08 Maly's Corner: Interview with a VBadGirl