The upcoming season for Open will begin on Tuesday, January 9th. Any team that does not have 6 players on the roster by Saturday, January 6th will be removed from the league.

You are required to play your preseason match, teams that forfeit risk being deactivated for the season. The map for preseason is de_concrete2.

The dates and map list for the rest of the season can be found on the sidebar along the lower right side of this page.

The ACS (CAL-AC Client) will be used during preseason, there should be an update posted concerning this at some point this upcoming Saturday.

There were a few more rule updates that you should be aware of:
6.10b Playoff Disputes
6.110 Appeals
6.120 Contacting an AC Official
4.10d Team Hijackings

Please make sure that you have read these updates as well as those posted previously.

Schedules are again being pushed back a bit longer because as of this morning we are compiling a list of teams who were inadvertently marked as unassigned.

Fortunately, we have found the error that was causing this, and it has been corrected. I would like to thank everyone who is patiently waiting for us to resolve this, and I can assure you schedules will be released as soon as this matter is smoothed out.

Not only has it been an extra long break but it's also a summer season when many of us are our partying, boozing and traveling but we still managed to clitch our first preseason with the support of our vets.  I'm looking forward to a fun summer season and Stealth! deserves special credit for getting to off on the right foot.  Also, special thanks goes out to Trev`, DS!, JohnnyD and myself for making match time and to Carlito!, Wev! and Cowboy! who were ready on the sidelines to fill in if needed.

Easy win for us tonight but unfortunately she doesn't add up to much as it's preseason but at least we all know our Steam is updated and what the Az2 looks like.  Here's to a casual season gents where we hope to give everybody a chance to play and rely heavily on our veteran experience rather than our hard work ethic.

Get drunk, get laid and join us Tuesdays for a rape-tastic good time!

A rules update has been published as of today at noon. The updates made were mainly amendments to what was already in the rules, with the exception of one addition regarding custom GUI usage. All members competing in this league are expected to read over the rules in their entirety as to reduce problems both during matches and during the scheduling of matches. Ignorance is no excuse for not reading the rules, punishments will be issued and not revoked if rules are broken. Terri Cook has created a news post to allow for those already familiar with the previous rules to just read the updates. If you have any questions regarding the rules, you are free to click the Live Support button on the right in your respected division or CAL PM/E-Mail myself at

Thank You,
Ryan Hickman
Counter-Strike Main Division Manager

All playoff teams are required to download the ESEA client; you may download this file from the Files section, or here directly. This client MUST be run for all matches. Simply load the ESEA client, and then Open Counter-Strike and connect to your designated server. To login, please select CAL, and use your CAL login name and password.

Secondly, all matches will be on VGN/CAL servers, for Atlantic and Pacific teams, you must use the Verizon Game Network servers.

Please note that due to the nature of the VGN, Central teams will be required to use CAL-provided servers.

You may download the VGN client here.
This is for Atlantic and Pacific teams, this is the client you will use to reserve your servers. Make sure to select the ESEA option when launching the server.

Click on the download now button and download the file. Once its finished downloading, run the software and install it on your computer. Once that is finished, open the software up and it will try to update itself. Upon completion of that, you will see a login screen. Type in your username and password that you have been assigned and click login. You will then see the Verizon Game Network GUI. In the top left hand corner, you will see a button that says games with a drop down menu, select "Manage Installed Games". On the screen that comes up, press the "Scan for Games" button. It should find Counter-Strike 1.6, if it doesn't you will have to use the game and location drop downs. You only need to have it look for your games once, once it knows what games you have, you don't have to run the Managed Install Games again.

Once you are done telling it you have CS, click on the Launch Server button on the upper right. Select the game you want to launch a server for, which would be Half-Life: Counter-Strike then click Next. On the following screen, Select your server location and server name, do not check the invitation box and leave voice enabled on Yes. Then click the Customize Server Settings. Step 1 - Under player limit make sure to select at least 12 players. Game Type should be set to "CAL Official". Admin password is what you want the rcon password to be. Step 2 - Select "Official Cal Configuration W/ ESEA". You must select this at all times.

Under Map Library, select the map you will be playing and click add map. Once all of this is done, click on Ready. On the next screen, click on build server, you will notice a status bar, once it's full, you can click on Join the game. That's it!

These servers are dynamic servers, which mean they are up only when you need them. They will shut down automatically within 10 minutes of the server being empty. Also I suggest only having steam running and not having counter-strike open when you click on Join the Game. That will prevent a steam error from popping up.

Team leaders may obtain their VGN account information from the "Manage Team" button, for your division. The password was e-mailed to you; if you did not receive it, please use the Lost Password utility on the VGN website.

Fresh From CAL:

Many of you have been contacting game administrators about SteamID problems. We have recently implemented a unique ID filter that enforces the specified format:

0:(0 or 1):(digit sequence using 0-9)

There can be no variance to this whatsoever. 0:1:1234567 will work perfectly, but STEAM_0:1:1234567 or anything that does NOT follow the above formula exactly will result in an error.

Remember, be sure to watch the news page! You'll likely be seeing announcements in the near future.

Here's a link to our CAL page so we can all check our IDs:

http://www.caleague.com/?page=teams&teamid=82503

Fresh from the CAL site:

Regarding Season 16 registration, moveups, dates, map rotations, or other information: You can expect to see a news post releasing all of this in the near future, so there is no point in emailing Terri or I for specifics - it will all be posted here. Meanwhile, there will likely be a bit of downtime over the holidays, so enjoy the time off!

So we're still in relax mode as we try to find the time to scrim over the holidays.  But after X-mas - LOOK OUT! - We''l be hunting down the lazy players so we're in excellent shape for the new year!

Last season's CAL playoffs are going until mid December due to hurricanes, holidays and hackers.  We'll assume that next season's preseason will be delayed until the new year but it's about time we returned to our regular scrimming schedule.  We've had some awsome weeks of scrimming during this extended break but hopefully the holidays will afford us some extra time for those all-nighters.

I'll keep the site up-to-date as news of next season is announced by CAL.

Server Updates for Source Season II

Server Plugin:

The long awaited CAL Server Plugin (CSP) will be released tonight. I would personally like to thank opi from idemise and CAL-css|Hammett who put the hours down to make this a reality, this will take a bite out of clientside cvars used to give people unfair advantages during match play.

CSP is required on ALL match servers, starting immediately. Your grace period runs until the end of preseason, and the regular season matches will mark the beginning of its use.

Any server not using this plugin is inelligible for match play. Both linux and windows builds are supplied. Simply follow the installation instructions.

Upon entering a server, it will say you have been CSP authenticated. Any attempts to circumvent the way CSP works will result in you getting kicked from the server, and will make it abundantly obvious to your opponents that you are attempting to do something you shouldn't be trying.

Map Rotation: