Four of the eight groups in the Counter-Strike 1.6 tournament at World Cyber Games 2009 was played on Thursday – Who advanced to the knockout stages and who was eliminated? Read below to find out.

The group stage was kicked off early morning in Europe, with the first four groups entering the tournament, while remaning four groups will play on Friday. Each group would have two teams advancing, we fill you in on who's in and who's out at World Cyber Games 2009.

Group A

The favorite to win the group before the event, lived up to the expectations and qualified without trouble. French team Millenium faced the most resistance in the match against Parallax, where a 18-12 score on nuke was brought home. With there wins and maximum points, Millenium finished top spot. AEON.gamesense, who we predicted to claim second spot, should fall to the very bottom of the group, with three loss' and zero points. Parallax ended up in second place, which came about with victories against 4glory and AEON.gamesense.

1. Millenium
2. Parallax

Group B

The group turned out to be a very intense one at the end and for those who followed us during the day, witnessed a nail-biting finish. The Swedes from fnatic was called favorites and should take the role quite serious. In their second match, they played wNv.cn on stage, where they stormed to a 12-3 lead as T on nuke. It looked as they would finish it quick, but the Chinese team flipped it and it ended as a close affair. fnatic did take the three points with a 16-14 overall score.

Losing to wNv.cn, FireGamers really needed to pull off a victory against fnatic in the last match of the group to have a shot at progressing, but their 17-13 victory resulted in a three-way tie with fnatic and wNv, both of whom eventually progressed due to having a better round record between the affected teams.

1. wNv.cn
2. fnatic

Group C

The defending champions from mTw did not have any issues passing through to the knockout stages in first place. The toughest opponent was Power Gaming, but not something the Danes could not cope with. Russian side Virtus.pro was not able to bring up any major threats to mTw or Power Gaming and not wanting the victory against Vatos Locos, the Russians surprisingly placed fifth in the group.

1. mTw
2. Power Gaming

Group D

The least interesting group of the day, seeing H2k Gaming storm their way through, losing just 10 rounds in total, the Swedish team claimed first place in the group really quick. To follow H2k Gaming to the knockout stage was DuskBin (formerly known as RS-Gaming). Only losing to H2k and winning big in their matches against Xlungiz and Protos, the Hong Kong based team will now try their worth in the knockout stages, beginning with round of 16.

1. H2k Gaming
2. DuskBin

The biggest change for the knockout stages was fnatic placing second in their group, they end up in the same bracket as mTw, meaning the two teams will face each other in the semi-final, if they both win their round of 16 matches. The eight remaining teams for the knockout stages will be found Friday, seeing Groups E-H entering the tournament.

Groups E-H will start at 05:00CET on Friday, while the knockout stages will kick in on Saturday. Stay tuned for much more World Cyber Games 2009 coverage here on HLTV.org, as we will be bringing you all of the action, till the very end.