The Dota 2 International Championship have got underway, the prize pool currently stands at just over $2.7 million. Valve’s headquarters in Seattle, US, was the venue where the highly anticipated tournament gained over 400,000 concurrent live viewers within only a couple of hours of going live.

The list of Participants this year include the 2011 International Champion Na’Vi who’s from the Ukraine, the 2012 International Champion Invictus Gaming who’s from China, and Alliance who’s from Sweden. The latter being the bookies favourite to take the title this year.
An All-Star match and a 1v1 Solo Championship with the fans voting on the players will also be taking place this year. As more players buy the interactive compendium, the prize pool will actually increase all the time.
The International pool increases by a fair $2.50 every-time a $10 compendium is sold. The total amount sold reached a massive $2 million as early as May, and keeps on rising all the time.
Fans might want to put August 7th down in their diary’s this year, as that’s the date for the International 3 Main Event. It’ll finish on August 11th and will be streamed via Twitch.tv as well.