IEM COLOGNE 2023

The Intel Extreme Masters is one of the biggest Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO) tournaments in the world and the most viewed as well. The 2023 edition was a keenly contested one, with 24 teams trying to get a share of the $1,000,000 prize pool in the S-tiered competition. It also attracted some of the most audacious to GG Bet.

Group Stages

In Group A, 8 teams consisting of Heroic, Mongolz, GL, ENCE, Fnatic, 9INE, C9, and Monte were present. A straight-knocking game was played to determine the top two in the group. With ENCE finishing on top, beating Heroic in the finals and earning a place in the Semi-Finals. Heroic also got an automatic ticket to the quarterfinals. The remaining 6 teams played another knockout competition again, this time around Cloud9, who lost in the first round to Fnatic, came out as the winner and earned a place in the quarterfinals as well as the lower seed.

Vitality was unlucky to be placed in the same group with G2 eSports, who won the IEM Katowice 2023 edition. The other 6 teams that made up the group include Astralis, MOUZ, OG, NIP, and the popular FaZe and NAVI clans.

Despite winning the quarter-finals and semifinals with emphatic 2-0 wins, Vitality just couldn't beat G2 in the group finals and proceeded to the quarterfinals as the top seed after a 2-1 loss. Astralis made it to the quarterfinals as the lower seed.

Quarterfinals

The quarterfinals saw Heroic lose out badly to Astralis. Astralis stormed to an easy 16-7 and 16-11 win in the best-of-three series. Heroic finished ahead of Astralis at IEM Dallas, Rio, and Katowice 2023 but couldn't do that at Cologne.

In the second match of the quarterfinals, after a hard-fought game, Vitality overcame Cloud9 2-0 in games of 16-11 and 19-17. C9 tried their best but couldn't overcome the Vitality team.

Semi-Finals

The two teams that qualified from the quarterfinals just couldn't make it to the final stage against the teams that qualified directly to the semi-finals from the group stage. In the first series, ENCE faced off against Vitality and won 2-1. ENCE took the first map in a 16-14. Vitality responded promptly and won the second round 16-14 as well. Their energy couldn't take them through the third map as ENCE routed their way to a 16-7 blowout! A few people that took the risk and bet on handicap -8, -7, or -6 at GGBets were some of the biggest winners of the day.

Astralis wasn't even offered the moment of satisfaction Vitality had. G2 eSports stormed its way to a 2-0 win (16-12 and 16-9).

Finals

The showdown was a best of 5 series and not three. This brought up one of the most popular bet markets on the finals – the number of maps that will be played. While most people are tilted towards the game finishing in 5, a few bold people wagered on the game to end in just three maps!

Things didn't start on a good note for ENCE after losing the first map 16-4 – the joint lowest in the tournament after G2 eSports also beat FaZe clan 16-4 in the group stages. Things were barely better on the second map as ENCE lost 16-10 again. Some of the people that wagered on the game to finish in three rounds were already celebrating. The celebration was cut short after ENCE finally won Map 3, 16-13. G2 completed the massacre by winning Map 4, 16-9, and walking home with $400,000 in prize money.

G2 eSports has now won both IEM Katowice 2023 and IEM Cologne 2023.