Guide to Improving Yourself in CS:GO!

Hello guys, I am posting this to help out any new players looking to get into CS:GO seriously or just wanting to improve themselves in matchmaking. I am no professional player but I do consider myself adept on this after researching and playing 1200 hours so far in CS:GO. If you're willing to take the time to improve yourself, you'll will improve.

Tip #1: Learning the Maps & Callouts
This is just a very basic and general thing most people should get down first. If you know they layout of the map, where the choke points are, and the callouts for the map; it will help you and your team tremendously. Knowing when the enemy is going to show up, which angles you'll be able to get to before them and where they would be coming from is key in getting the drop on them, getting some frags, and securing the round for your team. Also, knowing the callouts will help your team adapt to the situation and rotate accordingly without running knife-out into the enemy because of a miss-call out from you.

Tip #2: Learning the Gun
This is also a very basic thing you should get down before you go anymore in depth. Knowing how to effectively shoot your weapon is obviously a very key part of getting kills and improving. Knowing how fast to shoot, the spray pattern, rate of inaccuracy, when to Tap fire or spray, and when to spam is very integral in winning the round for your team. I would suggest playing deathmatch, 1v1 arenas, or aim maps in order to fully learn what the guns can do. Since there are a quite a lot of weapons in CS:GO. this can be daunting at first, so I would suggest sticking to your most commonly used weapons like the rifles, snipers, and pistols before branching out into other weapons.

Tip #3: Crosshair placement & Pre-aiming
The most important part on getting the kill or taking that bombsite, is to know WHERE to aim at, where to peak, and where you can get shot from when pushing an area. This links back to tip #1 where you need to know your map in order to understand where the CT will most likely be sitting and watching in order to out-play him and get the kill. For example, let's say you're pushing Bomb site A in the de_inferno map and a CT player is sitting at graveyard stairs. When peaking lane, you should always clear porch, then balcony, then pit, then graveyard in that order, ALWAYS pre-aiming the head or the easiest shot. Obviously this is harder to explain in text so I would advise watching Pro player demos that play your site you do to understand fully how they preaim, what they peak, and how to stay alive.

Tip #4: Watching Your Demos
The most important part is knowing where you went wrong. Re-watching your demos on a game that you really struggled with to understand how you were being out-played or what was going on is very helpful in improving. You can find out quirks that you do that get you caught out in the open, or staying in cover too long that they take the site and clear you before you can react. Knowing how to counter your enemy team is very important and watching the demo on a game that you lost or struggled with can really help you improve. Obviously you can't watch all the demos from games you played, so I just suggest watching the demo of a game that you had issues with, a game where you lost 16-4 or were getting overtaken on site 24-7 without you being able to do anything.

Tip #5: Gamesense
This is something you'll gain overtime with playing. This would include knowing timings, when to peak, how to peak, and pretty much incorporate everything you've learned in the game so far and in this guide. Having really good gamesense is very important to winning, obviously. Knowing when the enemy might rotate, push, peak, or what they could be doing can change the whole outcome of the game.

Tip #6: Practice.
The key to getting better on these tips? Practice. Spend 30-60 minutes a day practicing these tips in deathmatch, 1v1 arenas, or casual matchmaking so you can improve yourself and warm-up before playing competitive. Don't overdo your practice though or you can burnout and become easily frustrated making it harder to improve and easier to iron in bad habits.

I will be adding in more and changing anything you guys have to say in. If you have a tip you would like to see in the guide, please leave it in a comment and i'll add it in! Let me know what I got wrong or where this guide can improve! Thank you guys for reading! Have fun in CS:GO!