I'm new to the quake section on CG, how ever i'm not entirely new to the series.
never played them at a competetive level amongst anyone apart from friends and such as it was the best multiplayer game around before unreal tournament.

Lately i've had a couple ladder matches and I didn't fairly bad, as I am not familiar with playing in a 1 v 1 situation, so my questions are based around how I am to get better at duels without ending up in a game with 10 - 12 other players.

I play with friends, neither of us have premium or pro membership, we join empty servers and within 5 minutes we have 2 - 3 other people join who are ridiculously good, have great timing and map knowledge so you end up being spawn killed after awhile.
I don't feel as though TDM or CA are appropiate atm but since i haven't played them i'm not entirely sure if the spawn points are the same, the timings of RA, YA and MH are the same.
Is there any way for me to either get in some scrim/duel practice against other people without buying premium or pro membership for the game? like an irc or some kind of place i could venture to, to find people interested in help or playing against other people.

I know watching demo's and matches provides extra awareness about the game but i believe playing more to get better works more effective for me. Playing people that make me sick of losing or that are better so i can learn how to avoid being killed from superior players.

Really enjoy quake, just don't enjoy spam and spawn deaths.
I'll probally end up buying the membership but i was just wondering if there is a way to compete against other players without having to be challenged by them on the ladder.

If peolpe join while your dueling your friend just ask them to leave.

www.4seasonsgaming.com for irc /more info than CG.
To get duels though, just look around the servers and keep an eye out.

yeah most games have scrims and what not i was like hmm duel scrims for quake live would be pretty awesome so i spent ages looking around the quake live, scrim section, pug and what not to see if someone has posted anything or to see if CG had anything to offer in the terms of 1v1 scrims. But if not i guess it'll have to be done by chat.

The better you get, the easier to find matches it becomes.

Add people to friends. And eventually as you meet people in duels, you might see them in a CA server and can ask them to go duel.

thanks.
i'll see how it goes.

just play with them in the server then ditch when its their turn