A hardware malfunction in the middle of a $750,000 tournament sounds like a nightmare but clever play helped keep the dream alive for Almaz “almazer” Asadullin.
During a match against OG, the forZe rifler’s computer suddenly froze in the middle of a very important round. Though he was still able to fire and move around, almazer had no idea what was happening around him in the round. Most Counter-Strike: Global Offensive players would just give up or call an emergency pause but the Russian rifler leveraged the situation to forZe’s advantage.
Instead of sitting in his spawn and waiting for the round to end, almazer became a living decoy grenade to distract OG’s players. He began shooting randomly before bravely charging into Mirage’s A bomb site. almazer’s seemingly-panicked shots and wild movement caused multiple reactions from OG’s players and eventually secured both the site and the round for forze.
OG had no idea that almazer’s screen was completely frozen and he was unable to see anything happening at all.
almazer’s unfortunate technical issue arose during the group stage of ESL Pro League Season 14, a $750,000 online CSGO tournament. His clever response secured a 10-5 lead over OG at the half. forZe would proceed to win Mirage 16-8, but OG fired back on Inferno and Overpass to take the series 2-1. forZe is currently set to advance to the playoffs with a 2-1 match record. OG is the only undefeated team in Group B.
The exact malfunction that affected almazer isn’t entirely clear. At first he seemed unable to move his crosshair but he does make slight aiming adjustments later into the clip. No technical pause was required as the teams had a short break before starting the second half of the map. almazer was able to quickly fix his issue and continue with the match.
While the commentary duo remarked that his mouse was likely broken, almazer took to social media afterward to clarify the problem. His mouse was completely fine and his computer froze up instead, he explained.
“I didn’t have problems with the mouse but the game froze (the picture was frozen). I could hear what was in the game and I could run.” almazer said, according to digital translation.
It’s still not clear if the issue was hardware or software-related. almazer’s GPU, CPU, monitor, or background programs could all be the culprit. It’s also possible that CSGO itself just completely bricked out. All we know for sure is that almazer’s mouse, reportedly a Logitech G Pro X Superlight, wasn’t actually the problem.
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