Take your pubs “to the next level” through ESEA
ESEA What?
E-SportSea has a great program that allows you to join scrims on the fly with the best players in CS 1.6 or Source. What makes this different from a regular pub or pickup match is that these servers are regulated and only players who are ESEA subscribers can join. Obviously the competition here is much higher than a standard pub as players are committed to a $6 a month subscription fee.
Since players are forced to use the ESEA application, which has a built in anti-cheat, there is also a strong focus on regulating the process of creating a active scrim. If players do not ready up within "x" amount of time, they lose Karma points and may be given a temporary suspension. This really helps get the scrims going without a hitch.
ESEA is very similar to an old version of Game-spy. The program first asks you to log in and then gives you options to filter ESEA servers based on pubs, scrims, or matches. One of the coolest features built into this is the stat ranking system where everyone is ranked based upon performance on an individual and team scale.
You can check out how you stack up against other players in a given match, or overall through the entire E-SEA network. This entire system is complimented by real time demo recording of every match download-able through the website. If you're looking to improve your game, this is one of the best public ways to do it, and i strongly recommend it. That been said, there's nothing better playing with your actual team, so keep that in mind; don't get sloppy.
Check out the Esportsea website for more info.