SK Gaming and ESC Gaming have defeated their quarter-final opponents at the 3rd Generation Intel Core Challenge by IO, which means they will meet later today in the semi-final of the competition.

SK met with a Finnish mix team eestralis, the winner of the second online qualifier. The Swedish team started on the CT-side of de_train, but the Finns took the pistol round and went up 3-0. SK quickly recovered and took the lead, but Niko "naSu" Kovanen secured two rounds for his team by winning a 1vs2 and 1vs3 situations in succession. The Finns only snatched one more round until the sides changed, which saw SK bring over an unconvincing 9-6 advantage.

naSu hasn't played CS in a long time, yet troublesome for SK

eestralis made the match even more interesting when they won the second pistol-round, which coupled with winning the first buy round actually brought them a 10-9 lead. But SK proved to be too strong after all, and despite dropping two more rounds, their attacks were quite successful which ended the map at 16-12.

On de_dust2 SK won their CT pistol, but the following three rounds were exchanged, and it was eestralis first to take a more notable lead with 6-2. SK finally recovered at that point, and ended the half with an 8-7 lead.

eestralis took their third of four pistol rounds in the match to even the score, but SK's break in the next round put the Swedish team up 11-8. The Finns then actually came back into the game with a few good rounds, but SK slowly but surely improved their score and in the end won 16-11.

3rd Generation Intel Core Challenge by IOBest of 0 eestralisMatchpage 0 2 12th May 2012 SK Gaming 12Train 16 11Dust2 16

SK make way to ESC semi-final clash

Match statistics:

SK Gaming	K - D	+/-	ADR	-

eestralis	K - D	+/-	ADR	-

ESC Gaming took on the first LAN qualifier winners Hellslayers, and the Poles lost the knife round as usual lately, so they started on the CT-side of de_dust2. Despite that, the clash was entirely one sided in favor of ESC, who clinched the first half 13-2 and quickly after that won the map 16-4.

The second map was de_train where ESC again started on the less favored side. They continued playing in laid back fashion, and although Hellslayers put up better resistance, the Poles still ended up with a solid 9-6 advantage as Terrorists. In the second half they simply did their job and closed the match with a 16-7 scoreline.

3rd Generation Intel Core Challenge by IOBest of 0 ESC GamingMatchpage 2 0 12th May 2012 Hellslayers 16Dust2 4 16Train 7

Match statistics:

ESC Gaming	K - D	+/-	ADR	-

Hellslayers	K - D	+/-	ADR	-

The great classic between the Poles and the Swedes in the semi-final is scheduled for 19:30 , so don't go anywhere and stay tuned to HLTV.org.