Illegal coaching exploit was used by at least 10 CSGO teams

M Alzamora Published 18/09/2020

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.

We still are not finished, but so far we’ve got confirmed cases of coach bug abuse going back to Q3 2015.

This means there has been five years of potential abuse, all because nobody wanted to publicly report it.
— Steve Dudenhoeffer (@steveduden) September 16, 2020

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.

An update on Majors and coaching: https://t.co/OEjakj9Zsv
— CS:GO (@CSGO) September 9, 2020

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.

M Alzamora

About M Alzamora

There are few things that writer M Alzamora loves more in life than Pokemon. And there are even fewer things that she loves more than her favorite Pokemon, Eevee. But M’s appreciation for gaming isn’t just limited to Nintendo’s famous pocket monsters. She’s interested in every type of game across every genre of gaming, and she has the credentials to prove it. M’s work has also been seen on Working Classicists and gaming sites.

View full profile