By now if you haven’t realized that doing anything “professionally” takes a lot of hard work and dedication, I’m not sure you will ever become the player you want to be. I’m going to tell you a few things that I am 100% positive will happen during the course of your CS career. First, you’re going to get frustrated and want to quit. There was a time where I thought I was just wasting my time because I could never stay consistent. One day I was playing on the level that I wanted to, and the next day it seemed that I couldn’t shoot anything (playing in CAL-main, about to go to CAL-invite at the time with e7, I had serious thoughts about quitting the game). This will happen to you which will cause you to get frustrated and you’ll want to give up. It’s at this point in your ‘career’ that you’ve got to make the decision to either stop playing competitively all together and give up all the progress you’ve made, or to continue to pay your dues and keep playing. I chose to keep playing and I’m glad to say it worked out. All players go through this phase, it is the great equalizer. This time period is what separates the good from the great players.
You need to be able to motivate yourself. No one else is going to motivate you to do what needs to be done. If you feel you need 3 hours of practice per day, do it. If you feel like you can play 12 hours a day and not feel the effects of staring at a monitor, go for it. As a general note, if you are playing for longer than 5 hours, please make sure you have a high refresh rate on your monitor (at least 100Hz if possible. Anything under 100Hz could cause headaches when playing for extended periods of time). When Israeli news site E-Srael asked Jason Lake how to create a successful orga- nization, he replied, “Outwork your competition in every facet of your organization”. This must hold true for you.
Eventually in your career you’re going to be told you’re not good enough. For example, back in one of my first good clans (Scope Resolution ::SR::) a player named “Warden” wanted to try out for the team. In order to make it he had to 1v1 sunman on de_aztec while the rest of the team spec- tated. After the 1v1 was over, sunman and Drax informed Warden that he just wasn’t what they were looking for and denied his request to join the team. Warden at that point could have gotten angry and quit, but he didn’t. It wasn’t until a few years later that me and Warden met again in GB. After a while we moved on to coL, and Warden is now one of the top players, if not the best player in the US. We all have times of trial and judgment, and it is how we deal with those judgments that determine how
far we will really eventually go.
Clutching
Since I wrote the last guide, one of the top questions on people’s minds still is how does someone consistently clutch a situation? For those of you not familiar with the term, clutching means to come up big in a pivotal situation. I went over this subject a little bit in my last guide with the 50 percent rule, but now I want to cover this subject in just a little bit more detail. To clutch you need to be able to keep calm. Even if your heart is beating out of your chest (which in some circumstances it will feel like it’s beating out of your chest) you still need to be in control of your extremities. It is a hard thing to do at first when the heart rate increases, but over time and through experience your hands will become steadier. If you ever find yourself in the position that you can’t seem to keep your arms still, envision in your mind storing all that nervous energy in your legs. When I play I usually subcon- sciously move my legs up and down, I don’t ever realize I’m doing it, but it sure helps my upper body stay steady. In the last guide I gave you some tips for controlling yourself if you’re overly-nervous so if you’re still having problems I suggest you re-read that section in Volume 1.
You need to keep a clear head and have a plan of action. If you are in a situation with the bomb planted and there are two remaining CTs trying to defuse for the win, you need to have planned out in your head already what your next move is going to be. When you are in a situation like that it’s a good idea to either hide completely and wait until the defuse, or if the situation is worse (3 to 1 or greater) it’s a good idea to put yourself in a spot where you know a CT will be coming from and try to get a quick kill to even the score. It may give away your position, but your position will be blown soon anyway. While hidden, listen to footsteps to get a good idea as to where the CTs are coming from. It is very important that you realize that in a 2v1 situation with the bomb down, the CTs are always go- ing to storm the site, making noise. When you hear the defuse you want to wait just a second before peaking. Before you peak remember that you’re not going to shoot at the diffuser, but rather his teammate (unless time permits of course). The reason for this is if you shoot the diffusers teammate and kill him (he will be the one guarding the diffuser) the diffuser will get nervous and may come off the diffuse. This could buy you some valuable extra time. If he does not come off the bomb, all you need to do from this point is continue to stay calm and shoot the diffuser. Shooting a man while he’s
off the bomb to try to shoot you, hide again until you hear another diffuse. After you hear it, count in your head between 2-3 seconds then peak him. This will ensure if he comes off the bomb again he’s killed his chances at a diffuse and even if you are killed, you will still win the round. If he doesn’t come off the bomb, make sure to kill him quickly.
Without defusal kit With a defusal kit
Defusal time in seconds
See why kits are so important? In a game where every second counts, one of the easiest and quickest (not to mention inexpensive) ways to be quicker is to have a defusal kit. You’d be surprised how many times a kit can help you clutch a round, and how many times a round is impossible to win without one. I can’t stress enough the importance of them, and you should note that on every save round you should have one person buy a kit just incase someone is able to defuse the bomb.
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 1 2 Defusal times 0 seconds 5 seconds