Counter-Strike
As an old school hardcore Counter-Strike fan I felt compelled to write this silly little article about the twentieth anniversary of both the organization that I dreamt to represent since a kid and of which I am proudly part of today, SK Gaming, and the series of events that gave us the foundation of what we call eSports today, Cyberathlete Professional League, also known as "The CPL."
Please note that this article has no connection with the current league operated under the same name after the acquisition of CPL by WoLong Ventures, Pte. Ltd., but rather follows the original run from 1997 to 2007 while the league was still managed back in Dallas, Texas, and focuses on the its history and overall structure as well as our achievements and accomplishments at these events.
Every aspect written in this article is purely done with true passion and nostalgia and serves as a reminder, idolization and a little bit of celebration as a whole. Shall we begin?
What is the CPL?
The CPL, Cyberathlete Professional League, was a professional and world leading video game tournament organizer founded and operated by the Dallas entrepreneur
Angel Munoz on 27th of June, 1997.
It is widely considered as the pioneer of electronic sports or alternatively known as competitive gaming. The CPL held over sixty events worldwide for the period of ten years and featured prize winnings surpassing US$3,000,000.
Most of the tournaments organized by CPL were located inside the Hyatt Regency hotel in Dallas, Texas, but there were numerous other events held all of over the globe in locations such as Germany, United Kingdom, Norway, Singapore, China, Brazil, Italy, Turkey, Netherlands, South Korea, Spain, France, Sweden and more.
The CPL was by a mile the world's most famous and intensive tournament series in competitive gaming and the dream of every aspiring gamer at that time, not only for those who played Counter-Strike, but also for those who enjoyed one or more of the majority of the big titles that were available back during that era.
The CPL Dallas battleground in the Winter of 2007.
(Photo courtesy of fragbite.se)
Have you ever wondered where legends such as Johnathan 'Fatal1ty' Wendel and the present Canadian Poker millionaire 
Griffin 'shaGuar' Benger came into the spotlight? How players such as 
Emil 'HeatoN' Christensen and Tommy 'Potti' Ingemarsson forged their names wide and deep in the history of eSports?
Or how SK Gaming became a world leader and scored records that to this very day remain unchallenged? It all began right there in Dallas with the first couple of CPL events.
Why was the CPL so important then and now?
It is no secret to anyone that the CPL brought us the standards and foundation that was needed to create what we have now. It set the milestone of what would later become the current generation of the competitive gaming industry.
It was plain and simple the beginning of the end of tournaments being held inside your neighbor's garage or basement. At that time, there was no other event that was even close to what CPL could offer, both in terms of environment and prestige.
Over the years CPL began expanding further and further and soon afterwards in 2005, Angel Munoz announced the "World Tour" scenario, where minor tournaments would be held in different areas across Europe, Asia, North and South America. It was the equivalent of modern LCS for League of Legends fans, "The International" for Dota 2 or simply put the official Valve-sponsored Counter-Strike: Global Offensive Major Championships. All combined together into one event.
Of course, the CPL can barely make a statement when it comes to today's requirements for a premier tier event, but was undoubtedly the best such back in the days and even featured things that were genuinely superior to some of what we have now. Considering the lack of sponsorship opportunities and significantly poorer viewership, the CPL did more than enough to deliver us a truly one of a kind experience that remains near and dear to our hearts to this very day.
Partners such as Intel and Razer, who are still continuously and massively supporting our scene, including SK Gaming as an organization, were part of the CPLs a decade ago, but the investment was not possible back then. However, it was enough for CPL to bring projects such as the $1,000,000 2005 World Tour to life. The mainstream media could not care less at the time and all the support had to come from external sponsors such as the aforementioned two, rather than from the software developers and crowd-funding initiatives like nowadays.
Angel Munoz's quote at CPL Summer 2002:
"Some people choose to believe the impossible and other people choose to do the improbable. Five years ago as we've said before I've spoke to Steve about this concept of turning computer game competitions to a professional sport... And today, those that resist to see the reality are just being stubborn."
(Photo courtesy of fragbite.se)
It took a while for the eSports scene to grow up expansively to what it is today without CPL's presence in the circuit. Fortunately, our dreams became a reality even without an active CPL, but not without the experience and knowledge gained from and around them over the years.
What made the Cyberathlete Professional League truly unique and outstanding compared to the other competitions during their peak was not only the resources and talented staff team, but also Angel Munoz's constant strive to manage the things "his way" as Frank Sinatra would often say. This is why I strongly believe that we need more minds like him in one position or another for the better future of eSports.
Remember electronic dance duo Krewella's performance at ESL One New York? Well, the CPL had a concert on their own back during their Summer edition in 2002 featuring the band Reflection Theory. The crew behind these events were surprisingly always one step further for their time, once again taking in consideration the lack of sponsorship and overall interest.
Another example for this is the extended map pool for Counter-Strike. The majority of the readers here who have been active in the community during the old Counter-Strike 1.6 era should know well the following three maps that were exclusively made for the league: Strike, Fire and Mill.
Yes, the CPL had their own custom build maps for the Counter-Strike circuit, two of which became widely known not only in CS 1.6, but also in Source and later Global Offensive. No other tournament had such an advantage or at least not with much of a success.
Can we repeat this step in CS:GO? Surely we can, albeit not as smoothly and easily as back then due to multiple factors, the biggest one probably being the extensively large amount of tournaments and leagues we get, but I believe certain changes from year to year are indeed welcome and thus recommended. Also don't you think it's about time for us to have a Winter-themed level in competitive CS:GO?
SK Gaming at Cyberathlete Professional League:
We cannot negate the fact that one of the major reasons why we are so successful as a leading eSports organization and one of the world's most recognized brands in competitive video gaming is our Counter-Strike team's undisputed dominance during the good old CPLs.
Our journey began on 8th of December during the CPL Europe Cologne 2000 event, where unfortunately our then German division couldn't make it far. However the Germans compensated with first place at the 2001 edition of Virtua CPL Latin America in Sao Paulo, Brazil.
Following next for our old fellas was CPL Europe Holland 2001, where SK Gaming finished sixth losing to Spirit of Amiga, who later came on top of the bracket. The third CPL tournament for the year, CPL Europe London 2001, brought us fourth place finish via the third place decider loss to GameOnline.
Unfortunately, CPL Europe Berlin 2001 was also not a successful one as we finished eighth, but it came as no surprise as the tournament was won by the Swedish giants of Ninjas in Pyjamas. In November 2001, our German division scored their second Brazilian CPL, Tilt Total CPL Latin America 2001, by overcoming team redstar in the grand final. The largest event was yet to come, CPL Winter 2001, where we witnessed some of the biggest names at the time such as NiP, mTw, SoA, Domain of Pain and 4Kings. SK Gaming ended up with another rather disappointing performance placing between ninth to twelfth.
The first tournament of the series for 2002 was CPL Europe Cologne, where we went to with our then new Scandinavian Counter-Strike team led by Harvey 'Xenon' Migotti. We finished third losing to team against All authority in a two rounds difference match, but managed to defeat goodgame for the third place. Next on the list was none other than CPL Summer 2002 in Texas, but this time we came prepared as we had recently added Potti and HeatoN to the lineup as well as the Norwegian tactician 
Jorgen 'XeqtR' Johannessen. The team won the event over GoL and scored our first major CPL title! Well done!
Despite the previous success however, CPL Europe Oslo 2002 did not turn out exactly in our favor, as we failed to surpass the group stage of the tournament, going down to Abdisamad 'SpawN' Mohamed's matrix. The Winter edition of CPL 2002 was next off, where our team had a respectable showing considering the tight competition, finishing third after losing the upper bracket final match versus Kyle 'Ksharp' Miller's Team 3D.
CPL World Tour 2005 in Barcelona, Spain.
(Photo courtesy of fragbite.se)
And here we come with one of our most notable years as an organization - 2003. As I have already stated above: The CPL was the equivalent of the current CS:GO Majors, and we are more than proud to be the brand with most CPL titles! Not only did we manage to achieve this, but our 2003 lineup is to this date one of the, if not the most, dominant team in the history of competitive gaming. The squad we had back then managed to conquer all four CPL events during the year. It was a fantastic year for SK Gaming, not only when it comes to CPL or Counter-Strike in general, but for other events, disciplines and activities too.
We conquered both CPL Europe Cannes 2003 and CPL Summer 2003, over the famous Swedish leader Johan 'vesslan' Ryman's team9. We then won CPL Europe Copenhagen 2003 over Gamepoint, the same team who later became EYE, and secured the last major for the year, CPL Winter 2003, over shaGuar's NoA. This legendary roster consisted of Potti, HeatoN, SpawN, Christer 'fisker' Eriksson, Michael 'ahl' Korduner and the Norwegian prodigy Ola 'elemeNt' Moum.
Sadly, 2004 was by far not as great as the previous year, but it is somewhat understandable considering that there were only two CPL events, the Summer and Winter championships. We finished second at the Summer edition to Christian 'vilden' Lidstrom's EYE, but shockingly ended up last during the Winter series.
Soon after HeatoN and Potti left the team to re-create NiP Gaming, so we had to acquire a brand new Danish lineup, which featured the likes of current Astralis coach
Danny 'zonic' Sorensen and Jonas 'whiMp' Svendsen.
The Danes' first event was CPL World Tour Spain 2005 in Barcelona, where the squad finished ninth to twelfth, after failing to overcome
Roman 'Roman R.' Reinhardt's mousesports in the upper bracket and the French team goodgame in the lower.
Another seventh to eight finish followed in Rio de Janeiro at CPL World Tour Brazil 2005, where our team fell down against
Renato 'nak' Nakano's g3nerationX. This was the last CPL event for our Danish lineup under the SK Gaming banner.
For the Texas CPL Summer 2005 event in the hot July we came with a completely new all Swedish roster. It consisted of SpawN, fisker, ahl, vilden and the bright mind Mattias 'Snajdan' Andersen. It came as no surprise to anyone as the Swedes managed to win the tournament over the Canadian team Evil Geniuses, who had former NoA and Team 3D player shaGuar on their side.
One of the most memorable matches in Counter-Strike 1.6:
SK Gaming vs. Team 3D at CPL Winter 2005
(Video courtesy of MFAVP)
Just two months later our team flew to Sheffield for CPL World Tour UK 2005. This time however the fellas left the competition with seventh to eight finish due to now filled with Norwegian players team9's strong play in the upper bracket. Fortunately, we were able to recover right on time and salvaged the Winter 2005 edition of CPL over the South Koreans of Lunatic-hai.
Similar to our 2003 CPLs, this particular event left tons of memories and emotions, which have been captured in an aftermovie made for us called "SK Believe." This video was created by Heikki "Hesesses" Lampinen and can be found on YouTube.
SK Gaming winning CPL Winter 2005's Counter-Strike 1.6 championship!
Left to right: bds, Snajdan, vilden, ahl, fisker & SpawN.
(Photo courtesy of fragbite.se)
CPL Winter 2005 was the last major tournament of the series that we were crowned champions of. In December we went to our final CPL, the Winter 2006 championship, with two new players, Jonas 'GoodFella' Virtanen and the youngster Jimmy 'allen' Allen, and finished ninth to sixteenth after a tough defeat against 
Kun-chul 'solo' Kang's Project Korea.
With this tournament our Cyberathlete Professional League journey ended. In 2008, CPL closed doors with Angel Munoz and company parting ways.
SK|GoodFella and co. at our last CPL event. The CPL Winter 2006 edition.
(Photo courtesy of fragbite.se)
Major achievements:
1st. Cyberathlete Professional League Winter 2005
1st. Cyberathlete Professional League Summer 2005
2nd. Cyberathlete Professional League Summer 2004
1st. Cyberathlete Professional League Winter 2003
1st. Cyberathlete Professional League Summer 2003
3rd. Cyberathlete Professional League Winter 2002
1st. Cyberathlete Professional League Summer 2002
Minor achievements:
1st. Cyberathlete Professional League Europe Copenhagen 2003
1st. Cyberathlete Professional League Europe Cannes 2003
3rd. Cyberathlete Professional League Europe Cologne 2002
1st. Cyberathlete Professional League Tilt Total Latin America 2001
4th. Cyberathlete Professional League Europe London 2001
1st. Cyberathlete Professional League Virtua Latin America 2001
A huge thank you!
We would like to thank all of our players who have represented us in the CPLs, our fans who supported us during all of these years, Angel Munoz and the crew for their absolutely astonishing competitions and last, but not least, Andreas 'bds' Thorstensson, who made our CPL run as well as many, many others, become real.
What was your favorite CPL moment? Which SK Gaming lineup was the one that you cheered the most for? Share your thoughts and memories using the comment section below or around the social media channels using #SKCPL.
Stay tuned to SK Gaming for more content.
Please note that this article has no connection with the current league operated under the same name after the acquisition of CPL by WoLong Ventures, Pte. Ltd., but rather follows the original run from 1997 to 2007 while the league was still managed back in Dallas, Texas, and focuses on the its history and overall structure as well as our achievements and accomplishments at these events.
Every aspect written in this article is purely done with true passion and nostalgia and serves as a reminder, idolization and a little bit of celebration as a whole. Shall we begin?
The CPL, Cyberathlete Professional League, was a professional and world leading video game tournament organizer founded and operated by the Dallas entrepreneur
Angel Munoz on 27th of June, 1997.It is widely considered as the pioneer of electronic sports or alternatively known as competitive gaming. The CPL held over sixty events worldwide for the period of ten years and featured prize winnings surpassing US$3,000,000.
Most of the tournaments organized by CPL were located inside the Hyatt Regency hotel in Dallas, Texas, but there were numerous other events held all of over the globe in locations such as Germany, United Kingdom, Norway, Singapore, China, Brazil, Italy, Turkey, Netherlands, South Korea, Spain, France, Sweden and more.
The CPL was by a mile the world's most famous and intensive tournament series in competitive gaming and the dream of every aspiring gamer at that time, not only for those who played Counter-Strike, but also for those who enjoyed one or more of the majority of the big titles that were available back during that era.
The CPL Dallas battleground in the Winter of 2007.
(Photo courtesy of fragbite.se)
Have you ever wondered where legends such as
Johnathan 'Fatal1ty' Wendel and the present Canadian Poker millionaire Griffin 'shaGuar' Benger came into the spotlight? How players such as Emil 'HeatoN' Christensen and Tommy 'Potti' Ingemarsson forged their names wide and deep in the history of eSports?Or how SK Gaming became a world leader and scored records that to this very day remain unchallenged? It all began right there in Dallas with the first couple of CPL events.
It is no secret to anyone that the CPL brought us the standards and foundation that was needed to create what we have now. It set the milestone of what would later become the current generation of the competitive gaming industry.
It was plain and simple the beginning of the end of tournaments being held inside your neighbor's garage or basement. At that time, there was no other event that was even close to what CPL could offer, both in terms of environment and prestige.
Over the years CPL began expanding further and further and soon afterwards in 2005, Angel Munoz announced the "World Tour" scenario, where minor tournaments would be held in different areas across Europe, Asia, North and South America. It was the equivalent of modern LCS for League of Legends fans, "The International" for Dota 2 or simply put the official Valve-sponsored Counter-Strike: Global Offensive Major Championships. All combined together into one event.
Of course, the CPL can barely make a statement when it comes to today's requirements for a premier tier event, but was undoubtedly the best such back in the days and even featured things that were genuinely superior to some of what we have now. Considering the lack of sponsorship opportunities and significantly poorer viewership, the CPL did more than enough to deliver us a truly one of a kind experience that remains near and dear to our hearts to this very day.
Partners such as Intel and Razer, who are still continuously and massively supporting our scene, including SK Gaming as an organization, were part of the CPLs a decade ago, but the investment was not possible back then. However, it was enough for CPL to bring projects such as the $1,000,000 2005 World Tour to life. The mainstream media could not care less at the time and all the support had to come from external sponsors such as the aforementioned two, rather than from the software developers and crowd-funding initiatives like nowadays.
Angel Munoz's quote at CPL Summer 2002:
"Some people choose to believe the impossible and other people choose to do the improbable. Five years ago as we've said before I've spoke to Steve about this concept of turning computer game competitions to a professional sport... And today, those that resist to see the reality are just being stubborn."
(Photo courtesy of fragbite.se)
It took a while for the eSports scene to grow up expansively to what it is today without CPL's presence in the circuit. Fortunately, our dreams became a reality even without an active CPL, but not without the experience and knowledge gained from and around them over the years.
What made the Cyberathlete Professional League truly unique and outstanding compared to the other competitions during their peak was not only the resources and talented staff team, but also Angel Munoz's constant strive to manage the things "his way" as Frank Sinatra would often say. This is why I strongly believe that we need more minds like him in one position or another for the better future of eSports.
Remember electronic dance duo Krewella's performance at ESL One New York? Well, the CPL had a concert on their own back during their Summer edition in 2002 featuring the band Reflection Theory. The crew behind these events were surprisingly always one step further for their time, once again taking in consideration the lack of sponsorship and overall interest.
Another example for this is the extended map pool for Counter-Strike. The majority of the readers here who have been active in the community during the old Counter-Strike 1.6 era should know well the following three maps that were exclusively made for the league: Strike, Fire and Mill.
Yes, the CPL had their own custom build maps for the Counter-Strike circuit, two of which became widely known not only in CS 1.6, but also in Source and later Global Offensive. No other tournament had such an advantage or at least not with much of a success.
Can we repeat this step in CS:GO? Surely we can, albeit not as smoothly and easily as back then due to multiple factors, the biggest one probably being the extensively large amount of tournaments and leagues we get, but I believe certain changes from year to year are indeed welcome and thus recommended. Also don't you think it's about time for us to have a Winter-themed level in competitive CS:GO?
We cannot negate the fact that one of the major reasons why we are so successful as a leading eSports organization and one of the world's most recognized brands in competitive video gaming is our Counter-Strike team's undisputed dominance during the good old CPLs.
Our journey began on 8th of December during the CPL Europe Cologne 2000 event, where unfortunately our then German division couldn't make it far. However the Germans compensated with first place at the 2001 edition of Virtua CPL Latin America in Sao Paulo, Brazil.
Following next for our old fellas was CPL Europe Holland 2001, where SK Gaming finished sixth losing to Spirit of Amiga, who later came on top of the bracket. The third CPL tournament for the year, CPL Europe London 2001, brought us fourth place finish via the third place decider loss to GameOnline.
Unfortunately, CPL Europe Berlin 2001 was also not a successful one as we finished eighth, but it came as no surprise as the tournament was won by the Swedish giants of Ninjas in Pyjamas. In November 2001, our German division scored their second Brazilian CPL, Tilt Total CPL Latin America 2001, by overcoming team redstar in the grand final. The largest event was yet to come, CPL Winter 2001, where we witnessed some of the biggest names at the time such as NiP, mTw, SoA, Domain of Pain and 4Kings. SK Gaming ended up with another rather disappointing performance placing between ninth to twelfth.
The first tournament of the series for 2002 was CPL Europe Cologne, where we went to with our then new Scandinavian Counter-Strike team led by
Harvey 'Xenon' Migotti. We finished third losing to team against All authority in a two rounds difference match, but managed to defeat goodgame for the third place. Next on the list was none other than CPL Summer 2002 in Texas, but this time we came prepared as we had recently added Potti and HeatoN to the lineup as well as the Norwegian tactician Jorgen 'XeqtR' Johannessen. The team won the event over GoL and scored our first major CPL title! Well done!Despite the previous success however, CPL Europe Oslo 2002 did not turn out exactly in our favor, as we failed to surpass the group stage of the tournament, going down to
Abdisamad 'SpawN' Mohamed's matrix. The Winter edition of CPL 2002 was next off, where our team had a respectable showing considering the tight competition, finishing third after losing the upper bracket final match versus Kyle 'Ksharp' Miller's Team 3D.CPL World Tour 2005 in Barcelona, Spain.
(Photo courtesy of fragbite.se)
And here we come with one of our most notable years as an organization - 2003. As I have already stated above: The CPL was the equivalent of the current CS:GO Majors, and we are more than proud to be the brand with most CPL titles! Not only did we manage to achieve this, but our 2003 lineup is to this date one of the, if not the most, dominant team in the history of competitive gaming. The squad we had back then managed to conquer all four CPL events during the year. It was a fantastic year for SK Gaming, not only when it comes to CPL or Counter-Strike in general, but for other events, disciplines and activities too.
We conquered both CPL Europe Cannes 2003 and CPL Summer 2003, over the famous Swedish leader
Johan 'vesslan' Ryman's team9. We then won CPL Europe Copenhagen 2003 over Gamepoint, the same team who later became EYE, and secured the last major for the year, CPL Winter 2003, over shaGuar's NoA. This legendary roster consisted of Potti, HeatoN, SpawN, Christer 'fisker' Eriksson, Michael 'ahl' Korduner and the Norwegian prodigy Ola 'elemeNt' Moum.Sadly, 2004 was by far not as great as the previous year, but it is somewhat understandable considering that there were only two CPL events, the Summer and Winter championships. We finished second at the Summer edition to
Christian 'vilden' Lidstrom's EYE, but shockingly ended up last during the Winter series.Soon after HeatoN and Potti left the team to re-create NiP Gaming, so we had to acquire a brand new Danish lineup, which featured the likes of current Astralis coach
Danny 'zonic' Sorensen and Jonas 'whiMp' Svendsen.The Danes' first event was CPL World Tour Spain 2005 in Barcelona, where the squad finished ninth to twelfth, after failing to overcome
Roman 'Roman R.' Reinhardt's mousesports in the upper bracket and the French team goodgame in the lower.Another seventh to eight finish followed in Rio de Janeiro at CPL World Tour Brazil 2005, where our team fell down against
Renato 'nak' Nakano's g3nerationX. This was the last CPL event for our Danish lineup under the SK Gaming banner.For the Texas CPL Summer 2005 event in the hot July we came with a completely new all Swedish roster. It consisted of SpawN, fisker, ahl, vilden and the bright mind
Mattias 'Snajdan' Andersen. It came as no surprise to anyone as the Swedes managed to win the tournament over the Canadian team Evil Geniuses, who had former NoA and Team 3D player shaGuar on their side.One of the most memorable matches in Counter-Strike 1.6:
SK Gaming vs. Team 3D at CPL Winter 2005
(Video courtesy of MFAVP)
Just two months later our team flew to Sheffield for CPL World Tour UK 2005. This time however the fellas left the competition with seventh to eight finish due to now filled with Norwegian players team9's strong play in the upper bracket. Fortunately, we were able to recover right on time and salvaged the Winter 2005 edition of CPL over the South Koreans of Lunatic-hai.
Similar to our 2003 CPLs, this particular event left tons of memories and emotions, which have been captured in an aftermovie made for us called "SK Believe." This video was created by
Heikki "Hesesses" Lampinen and can be found on YouTube.SK Gaming winning CPL Winter 2005's Counter-Strike 1.6 championship!
Left to right: bds, Snajdan, vilden, ahl, fisker & SpawN.
(Photo courtesy of fragbite.se)
CPL Winter 2005 was the last major tournament of the series that we were crowned champions of. In December we went to our final CPL, the Winter 2006 championship, with two new players,
Jonas 'GoodFella' Virtanen and the youngster Jimmy 'allen' Allen, and finished ninth to sixteenth after a tough defeat against Kun-chul 'solo' Kang's Project Korea.With this tournament our Cyberathlete Professional League journey ended. In 2008, CPL closed doors with Angel Munoz and company parting ways.
SK|GoodFella and co. at our last CPL event. The CPL Winter 2006 edition.
(Photo courtesy of fragbite.se)
Major achievements:
1st. Cyberathlete Professional League Summer 2005
2nd. Cyberathlete Professional League Summer 2004
1st. Cyberathlete Professional League Winter 2003
1st. Cyberathlete Professional League Summer 2003
3rd. Cyberathlete Professional League Winter 2002
1st. Cyberathlete Professional League Summer 2002
Minor achievements:
1st. Cyberathlete Professional League Europe Cannes 2003
3rd. Cyberathlete Professional League Europe Cologne 2002
1st. Cyberathlete Professional League Tilt Total Latin America 2001
4th. Cyberathlete Professional League Europe London 2001
1st. Cyberathlete Professional League Virtua Latin America 2001
We would like to thank all of our players who have represented us in the CPLs, our fans who supported us during all of these years, Angel Munoz and the crew for their absolutely astonishing competitions and last, but not least,
Andreas 'bds' Thorstensson, who made our CPL run as well as many, many others, become real.What was your favorite CPL moment? Which SK Gaming lineup was the one that you cheered the most for? Share your thoughts and memories using the comment section below or around the social media channels using #SKCPL.
Stay tuned to SK Gaming for more content.
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