Ex-C9 Coach Reportedly Exploited Coach Spectator Bug Multiple Times

Another version of the infamous CS:GO 'Coach Spectator Bug' was recently found, which allowed the user spectating a match to roam around the entire map with a free-spectator camera without any restrictions. This allowed the user to view all the players in-game from anywhere on the map and gain every bit of information about the enemy side.

This is by far the most intrusive and critical version of the spectator bug till date. A couple of years ago this bug had shaken up the entire CS:GO community. It had resulted in multiple CS:GO coaches being handed an official ban by both the ESIC (Esports Integrity Commission) and Valve.

The discovery of this particular version of the coach spectator bug was made recently when Dexerto reported that former Cloud9 coach Soham "valens" Chowdhury had used the exploit multiple years ago in three separate instances. One of which included the use of this free roam version, lasting a total of one round before reverting back to normal.

Most game-breaking and intrusive version of 'Coach Spectator Bug' found in CS:GO

One of the biggest controversies to hit CS:GO in the history of the game, has not been completely unraveled, understood, or solved so far. On February 9^th, a Dexerto report revealed that former coach and current head of data science for Evil Geniuses, valens, had used the infamous 'Coach Spectator Bug' on three separate occasions.

The first two instances were:

• Viewing the 'B-Site' of Inferno against Team Liquid at the EPICENTER 2017 - Americas Closed Qualifier in October 2017.

• Viewing the 'T-Spawn' of Train against OpTic Gaming at the ESL Pro League Season 7 - North America in the first quarter of 2018.

The third time when valens exploited the bug, he was not bound to a single static spectator camera and was instead able to free roam around the map as a spectator. This instance occurred against Team Liquid as part of the EPICENTER 2017 series, but on Mirage.

The 32-year-old coach was able to view all the action within the server in a free roam state and could have gathered any information about the opposition that he would have wanted.

According to valens, he had witnessed this version of the bug twice on the same map.

• First time, before the game between the two teams had gone live. Due to the server restarting for the official game, the camera had also reset.

• Second time, after the game had started, in the fourth round of the first half, after reconnecting to the server during a pause. However, it only lasted for that particular round.

Michal Slowinski, veteran CS:GO referee and the tournament admin, played a vital role in helping ESIC analyze all the demos and uncover the whole scandal. He stated,

So far, this is the only instance of the free roam version of the coach spectator bug that has come to light. This does not mean that it has been solved by Valve, as many versions of the bug have been spotted since the developers claimed to have solved it.