QuakeCon has long been a staple on the esports competitive calendar, providing the community with the last major event to be centered around the cult title. While several large events do still offer Quake competition, QuakeCon is the only major event to put the game front and center.

The professional tournament will utilize Quake Live, formerly Quake Zero, the latest incarnation of id Software's Quake series. The browser-based, free-to-play title has been in closed beta for quite some time, chances are what we'll see at QuakeCon 2009 will be polished to a mirror shine.

QuakeCon 2009 is a rather important notch in tournament history, as Quake Live is liable to be released publicly somewhere in the same time frame. QuakeCon has always been used as a platform to promote id Software titles, it's quite probable that QuakeCon will be one of the main promotional events for Quake Live's release.

Id Software will try to rebound from last year's QuakeCon where the 1v1 finals between John "ZeRo4" Hill and eventual champion Alexei "Cypher" Yanushevsky started hours late. id Software originally wanted to shorten the number of maps or reduce the timelimit, but the players refused.

The event itself has space for almost 3,000 BYOC competitors as well as tournaments, exhibits, conferences and of course the principal focus not to be lost in all of this, it's free.

From the BYOC to the conferences, not a pennies charge will come your way.

Online registration for the event begins at 3:30 CET on March 7th, 2009. The QuakeCon event itself will take place between August 13th and 16th 2009, in Dallas, Texas at the Hilton Anatole Hotel.

QuakeCon