What was supposed to be another epic day of group stage play ended with negative emotions for many of the people involved. An internet crash imposed a near 5 hour delay to the start but this was not the last misfortune that day.
Few seconds before the countdown timer was to end, IPL's stream crashed unexpectedly. A couple of minutes later an update about the situation was provided both via Justin.tv chat mods and by TL.net post by Alex.IGN. The reported cause of the problem was a huge internet crash at the whole venue, apparently caused by a vehicle that "had hit a pole a few miles away and cut the Comcast fiber line".
After finally the problem was fixed, IPL 3 resumed at around 21:30 CET but it was not meant to be a perfect night. Because of the massive delay, IPL administration decided to cancel the matches from Group C, the only two that had been played being Thorzain vs SeleCT (2-1 for the Swede) and Sleep vs Hero (2-0 for Sleep). Based on those results, IPL have awarded Sleep the first place in the group and Thorzain the second, followed by SeleCT and Hero.
Group D also did not go according to plan. After falling 1-2 to WhiteRa, IEM Guangzhou champion Idra decided to forfeit his two remaining games against MMA and TheSTC. Idra attributed his decision to being exhausted and "still on China time". Apart from that, Group D finished without any additional problems with TheSTC taking first and WhiteRa the seconds spot, followed by MMA and Idra.
Meanwhile, the open tournament was completed and thus the tournament bracket could be formed:
| IPL 3 Championship Bracket | ||
  Alive | vs |   Haypro |
| Artist | vs |  Idra |
  HuK | vs] | KawaiiRice |
| SLush | vs |  White-Ra |
 Stephano | vs | Kiwikaki |
| Sheth | vs | MMA |
| Boxer | vs | Lucky |
 Catz | vs | TheSTC |
| Sleep | vs | Minigun |
| Violet | vs | Strelok |
| Select | vs | Machine |
 Socke | vs | Ryung |
| Thorzain | vs | Spanishiwa |
 Demuslim | vs |  Ret |
| Puma | vs | Hero |
| Inori | vs | MC |
If everything goes according to plan, the elimination stage of IPL 3 will begin today at 16:00 CET with the first matches from the Ro32. And by tomorrow, the winner of the first place prize of $30,000 will be known.
Links
TL.net - Source
EsfiWorld.com - Source
