Being a professional in a Counter-Strike:Global Offensive requires a lot of things. Mainly, most of your time will have to be put in the game. Lack of friends, hangouts, or even girlfriend is also a probability for professional CS:GO players. Being a pro is like having a regular job, working 7-8 hours a day, but instead of working, you are sharpening your skills or studying your opponents.
On the other hand, there is a lot of money to be made, glory as well. When it comes to CS:GO, a top earner is Astralis member, Andreas “Xyp9x” Højsleth. He earned himself a total of $965.331,80. This is the crazy amount of money, especially for a video game professional.
PROFFESIONAL CS:GO
As mentioned above, all of the professionals put a lot of time and effort into the game. When you look at their profiles, they have all spent roughly 10000 hours playing Counter-Strike:Global Offensive. They also spend a lot of their time away from their family and relatives.
However, there is a good side to being a professional. Mainly, you get to earn money doing something you love, and let’s be honest, you earn a lot of money. Furthermore, you are playing in front of thousands watching live, either from the stands or through a streaming platform. Winning a tournament after all the hours you prepared for it has to be one of the best feelings in the world. Also, you will travel all over the world, participating in different tournaments and leagues, and all of your expenses are covered. This is the main reason why most of the pros will tell you that this is their dream job.
(F0rest, a cs:go legend)
HOW TO BECOME A CS:GO PROFESSIONAL
Everything starts with you. It is the same with everything in life. In order to succeed you need to have a good plan and training routine put in place. Dedication and time are the only roads to cs:go leagues in 2020.
DEDICATION
You need to go all in. However, some players will invest more time into becoming a pro, while some will achieve that with only a couple thousand hours invested in the game. This is called talent.
When CS:GO was released, there were only a few teams competing. In 2020 you can see new teams on regular basis. Not only teams, but you can also see talented young players popping up on the radar in every tournament. All of those players had one chance to shine, and they had to step up and show themselves to the eSports community. And yes, a few years ago, it was not that hard to become a professional, but today’s competition is what brings the best out of players.
PRACTICE CS:GO ON A REGULAR BASIS
If you want to improve, you will have to practice. As easy as that. Once again, we are back to the point where you will have to invest time to achieve something. CS:GO is based on aim, map control, communication, game sens, and team play. You can work on some of these aspects, but some will have to be grinded out with experience. For instance, you can play headshot only servers, for 5 days in a week, 2 hours a day. After 2-3 weeks, you will start dominating players from your skill level. But once you climb up, you will face smarter and sharper enemies, who are very experienced. And there is not much you can do about it, except keep on playing.
Furthermore, if you want to achieve something as a solo player, you won’t go far. The best advice I can give you is to find yourself a team to play with. There are a lot of sites out there made for solo players to find decent teammates to climb the ranks with. Counter-Strike:Global Offensive is based on team play and chemistry, which will improve the more you and your team play together.
Another thing that you will have to work on is your utility usage. Throwing a good smoke grenade, or flashbang or even molotov can greatly increase your chance of winning the round. Especially if you are playing in a team of 5 players. A proper grenade can get you out of uncomfortable situations and it can also set up a good play for you our your teammates. There are a lot of utility tutorials on youtube, learning some of those will help you a lot.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ROxONtMBL6Y&t=436s(Mirage utility usage, credits to HattonGames)
PC SETUP
You can have an advantage of your opponents, but it will cost you money. For instance, having a good processor and graphics card will make your CS:GO experience lag and stutter free. Furthermore, if you have extra money then you should definitely get yourself a 144 Hz monitor. But the most important things are mouse and keyboard. Let’s just say that 85% of professionals use ZOWIE’s mouses and HyperX keyboard. However, having a mechanical keyboard will improve your strafing and moving around the map.
CS:GO LEAGUES & TOURNAMENTS
Professional Counter-Strike:Global Offensive players compete in numerous different tournaments and leagues. Some of the teams even skip certain tournaments in order to rest and regain their composure. Let’s take October as an example. There are 4 leagues taking place:
– ECS Season 6 Europe
– ECS Season 6 North America
– ESL Pro League Season 8 Europe
– ESL Pro League Season 8 North America
We also recommend you to visit csgo betting sites where you can easily bet on your favorite team.
TOURNAMENTS
There are 17 different tournaments announced in October of 2020. This is a big number. There are some lower tier tournaments, and there are some that will attract top teams in the world. The last tournament with big prize pool took part in New York, it was a tournament form an ESL One series. The total prize pool was $250.000, and the winner was taking home a whopping $125.000. Tournaments are also being played in front of the sold-out stadiums and arenas. CS:GO is so popular that they managed to sell out and entire Barclays Center in Brooklyn.
(ESL One New York 2018 crowd)
CONCLUSION
The most important thing in Counter-Strike:Global Offensive is to learn from your mistakes. You constantly make mistakes, starting with your positioning, crosshair placement, utility usage. In order to go pro, you will have to reduce the number of mistakes you do. You will also have to be relaxed and passionate about the game. To conclude, if you keep on training and striving to be the best, you will definitely have a proper chance to prove that you deserve a contract with a CS:GO professional team. Simply, keep on improving.
What is your training routine, how do you improve? Be sure to let us know your thoughts in the comments down below.
