The CSGO tournament will feature a $600,000 prize pool, which will be paid out to the winner in bitcoin. Out of the sum, $100,000 will be shared amongst the four qualifiers, while $500,000 will be reserved for the main event.

The qualifiers for the tournament will start on July 10, while the main event will kick off in November 2023.

The Thunderpick World Championship will feature 16 CS:GO squads, eight of which will join via the four regional qualifiers in Europe and North America. The remaining eight teams will be invited by the tournament organisers.

Evil Geniuses are currently the only confirmed invited team on the list. They entered into a long-term partnership with Thunderpick a few weeks earlier, which made the crypto betting platform the “Marquee Partner” for all three Evil Geniuses CS:GO teams. This includes Evil Geniuses, EG Black, and EG Gold.

“We are thrilled to bring the Thunderpick World Championship 2023 to the professional CS:GO scene,” Thunderpick’s Head of Strategy Kelly Sanders said.

“This exceptional competition will feature some of the world’s best esports talent competing for a record-setting prize pool of $600,000 in guaranteed Bitcoin. We take great pride in supporting and growing esports and the players’ opportunities with this tournament, which will surely be an epic experience that players, fans, and our users will remember for a long time to come.”

Thunderpick revealed that it would organize a European boot camp for all the North American Counter-Strike esports squads that will qualify for the tournament. This will allow them to properly prepare for the main event.

The tournament organizers further disclosed a new partnership with Berlin-based data company GRID Esports for the duration of the event. The company will be Thunderpick’s esports services provider and data partner during this period.

“We are always intrigued by industry-driving initiatives like the concept of Thunderpick World Championship 2023,” Harry Wiggett, GRID Esports Head of Sponsorships, said in a statement.

The Thunderpick World Championship 2023 will reportedly be played on Counter-Strike 2 if the competitive esports scene switches to the new version by November.

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?Hokori reached the ThunderPick Bitcoin Series playoffs with a perfect 3-0 run through the main stage, beating Eternity, Arkosh Gaming, and Wildcard Gaming without dropping a single map. Of the three wins, we’re most interested in HKR’s victory over their round one opponent three weeks back.

Hokori won the first map of the series without any issues, grabbing an early lead and snowballing it to a dominant victory at just north of 31 minutes. The second map was closer, and Wildcard Gaming even led by 6.3k at 29 minutes, but poor execution allowed Hokori to bounce back and claim another dominant win.

Wildcard have since played seven games across ThunderPick Bitcoin Series and ESL One Malaysia 2022 North America: Closed Qualifier, winning four, albeit only against 5RATFORCESTAFF (2-1), Alpha (2-0), Nouns (2-1), and The Brood (2-0), which is hardly something to write home about.

On the other side, Hokori have played 14 games since the sweep and have lost just two (9-3-2). So even though Hokori haven’t had to face any tough opponents, they’re evidently in good form. In our book, there’s a 50/50 chance Hokori produce another 2-0 sweep, so at +162, a map handicap is a clear choice.

The Cut and Mad Kings both finished the group stage with a 3-1 record. The Cut won against Dreamers Esports (2-0), The Brood (2-0), and Arkosh Gaming (2-0), while Mad Kings defeated 5ManMidas (2-0), Team DogChamp (2-0), and Wildcard Gaming (2-0).

Even though both Dota 2 esports teams have done well in the group stage, we’re not surprised to see Mad Kings priced as underdogs for this bout, knowing that they’re 1-3 across their last four outings. Over that stretch, Mad Kings won against KBU.US (2-0) but lost the rematch (0-2) and have dropped two series against 5RATFORCESTAFF (1-2, 0-2).

But despite their shaky form, Mad Kings are now going against a team that has not played an official match in over two weeks. Admittedly, The Cut have participated in some lesser events over the last week, but it’s hard to imagine facing Goofy Goobers and AQ.Penniose has helped them get ready for this bout.

This has the making of a close affair that can easily swing either way. Although Mad Kings are a solid pick at even money or better, we’ll take a shot with MAD Kings to win 2-1 on the correct score market at +250. A smaller stake is recommended.

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?SINNERS Esports are the favourites to defeat Team Finest even though they’re 3-3 since the turn of the year and have a poor 48.7% win rate across the last three months. However, Team Finest don’t have a complete roster and are currently playing with Igor “lollipop21k” So?odkov and Maikil “Golden” Selim as stand-ins.

Unfortunately, neither of the two new additions are very good, and we can let Finest’s past results speak for themselves. Finest are 1-3 across their last four and 2-5 since their 2-0 victory against ENTERPRISE esports in the opening round of the ThunderPick Bitcoin Series.

SINNERS’ record isn’t that much better, and even though they had to play tougher opponents, we wouldn’t bet on them at the offered CS:GO betting odds. Team Finest might be very shaky, but SINNERS Esports are not that stronger. Expect a close match.

?BLINK picked up their third win of the year last Wednesday, when they defeated sAw (2-0), largely thanks to Ahmet “2high” Baftijari, who ended the series with a 1.30 rating. But despite their strong showing on the day, BLINK are still in shambles due to the departure of the team’s former core, who created a new team, Bad News Eagles.

HEET are a new French CS:GO roster that quickly made a name for themselves by winning Malta Vibes Knockout Series #5 at the end of January. They have since played nine games and lost four against Nemiga Gaming (0-2), Akimbo (1-2), FURIA (9-16), and Complexity (1-2). Still, HEET won the first meeting against Complexity (16-11) and took down Copenhagen Flames (2-1), SINNERS Esports (2-1), ENTERPRISE esports (2-1), and BLINK (2-0), who they stomped on February 2.

Even though HEET lost their last two outings, they’re still much better than BLINK. Last time out, the Albanian side won only nine combined maps across the series, and we expect a similar outcome on Thursday. We’re siding with HEET with a -5.5 round handicap on both maps at -116.28.

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?Nemiga Gaming parted ways with Aleksandr “1eeR” Nahornyj last month and added two new faces in Artem “Chill” Mankevich and Andrey “BELCHONOKK” Yasinskiy on trial. The new additions have played reasonably well and have helped Nemiga collect four wins across their last six outings against 1win, PACT, HEET, and Savage.

Still, Nemiga have not looked clean in their matches, and despite their solid win rate across the last month, the CIS squad left a lot to be desired when faced with tougher opponents. Furthermore, they lost their rematch with 1win last week (0-2) when Nemiga crashed out of ESL Challenger League Season 40: Europe.

SKADE made their last roster change at the start of January when the Belarus squad signed Kamen “bubble” Kostadinov and Simeon “dream3r” Ganev and parted ways with Viktor “Duplicate” Mitev. SKADE have since played 11 official matches but won only six, although they have won at least one map in three of their five defeats.

This is a clash between two out-of-form squads, and while SKADE have looked slightly better in their recent outings, they have a limited map pool, suggesting we should be in for a close affair.

?Dignitas enter the bout in better form, having won seven games since the turn of the year (7-2), while forZe won five (5-2). So form-wise, Dignitas and forZe are in a similar spot.

However, forZe had to play against much weaker teams, such as Entropiq Prague and lost against BLUEJAYS (14-16) at the end of January. So while forZe are arguably individually stronger than Dignitas, that hasn’t made much of a difference in their recent fixtures.

With the players forZe have, they should come out ahead, but their recent showings leave a lot to be desired, which is why we’re leaning more towards Dignitas for this match. Realistically, Dignitas should be favourites, so if you can get on them at -111.11 or close to that price, they are an excellent bet.

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