Illegal coaching exploit was used by at least 10 CSGO teams

News of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive’s coaching exploit has rocked the competitive scene, with up to 15 teams being investigated by the Esports Integrity Coalition for cheating.

The exploit has been patched out of the game, but it originally started as a simple bug that was fixed with a server restart. At some point, someone realized that it could be triggered intentionally in order to give coaches a bird’s eye view of the map, which allowed them to track the enemy team. Some coaches who have admitted to using the exploit said they found themselves stuck in the position unintentionally and used it minimal times without ever triggering it on purpose. Others, however, were caught after freelance referees Michal Slowinski and Steve Dudenhoeffer independently reviewed “thousands of demos” to catch the offenders. Continued work by both has revealed it has been used since at least 2015.

Below is a list of teams and coaches that have been punished for using the bug.

List of CSGO coaches and teams found using CSGO coaching exploit

• Aleksandr “MechanoGun” Bogatiryev – Two year ESL Ban, fired from Hard Legion Esports
• Nicholai “HUNDEN” Petersen – One year ban ESL Ban, suspended from Team Heroic
• Ricardo “dead” Sinigaglia – Six-month ESL Ban, released by MIBR
• Aset “K23” Sembiyev – suspended by K23
• Ivan “F_1N” Kochugov – suspended by Gambit Youngsters
• Slaava “Twista” Rasanen – suspended by ENCE
• Allan “Rejin” Petersen – admitted to using bug under mousesports
• Arthur “prd” Resende – admitted to using bug under Red Canids
• Faruk “pita” Pita – admitted to using bug under Ninjas in Pyjamas
• Peter “⁠casle⁠” Sørensen – admitted to using bug under Team Singularity

Any team that was found to be using the exploit in a Regional Ranking tournament had all of its tournament points revoked, a hard it for the teams that were positioned to reach the next CSGO major.

As fans wait for the results of the ESIC investigation, it’s more likely than not that more coaches will be implicated in the investigation. 

Updated September 18, 2020.