Professional 'CS:GO' Player Caught Cheating in Tournament
A professional Counter-Strike: Global Offensive player and his team were disqualified from a [...]
A professional Counter-Strike: Global Offensive player and his team were disqualified from a tournament after the player was caught cheating during the live event.
Pro player Nikhil "forsaken" Kumawat, a member of team OpTic India, was competing in the eXTREMESLAND Asia tournament when the game was paused to inspect his computer. CSGO2ASIA reported that the game had been paused for at least 20 minutes while officials inspected Kumawat's computer, an inspection that eventually led to them finding that he had cheats installed on the device.
Esports analyst and reporter Rod Breslau reported that the player was using an aim bot during the match, a cheat that makes the aiming reticule snap to players that appear on screen for more precise shots. The tweet below shows an example of the cheat being used during the match with Kumawat quickly targeting enemies that appear in front of him.
Optic India professional CSGO player Nikhil 'forsaken' Kumawat has been caught cheating on LAN today, disqualified from the tournament and kicked off Optic. This is clip of him playing today locking on at A site/quad.
No mercy for cheating in esports. Ban them all. pic.twitter.com/COFMj6A7bS
— Rod Breslau (@Slasher) October 19, 2018
This isn't the first time that Kumawat has been accused of cheating with another clip showing a similar scenario from 2017. In a video that shows him supposedly using the same cheat in a prior match, it doubled as a wall hack at times by letting him target an enemy that was still behind a wall with no way of knowing that they were there.
During the inspection, Kumawat appeared to make a move that would prevent the officials from finding the cheat. The tweet below shows the moment where the cheat was allegedly discovered, a finding that resulted in the player quickly moving to react to the situation.
The exact moment when admins at #eXTREMESLAND2018 caught forsaken and he attempted to delete the hack pic.twitter.com/rZG7aYBdbD
— CSGO2ASIA (@CSGO2ASIA) October 19, 2018
In response to the controversial tournament, OpTic India released a statement on Friday that said instances of cheating damaged both the brand and the region's integrity. OpTic India released Kumawat from the team as well as the rest of the roster to pursue other competitive opportunities.
"We stand strongly against any form of cheating as it not only tarnishes the local roster, but potentially harms competitive integrity in the region," OpTic India's statement said. "We have terminated Nikhil "forsaken" Kumawat's contract for his actions. At this time we are also releasing the remaining roster to pursue new opportunities with other competitive options."