Ksharp
Kyle "Ksharp" Miller (born 1984) is a professionally plays the video game Counter-Strike. His success has allowed him to defer attending college while earning a living as a gamer. Kyle currently plays for Team 3D.
Career
Miller started his professional career at the age of 14. Miller broke into the American Counter Strike (CS) players scene with the teams "CK3" and "NHG", but he made a name for himself with the team "X3" (eXtreme 3). His precise play in the CS map de_dust2 against iwa (Issues with Authority) led to the back of the B bomb site being designated the "Ksharp spot" by players around the world.
Miller, along with clanmates Ronald "Rambo" Kim and Sean "Bullseye" Morgan, left X3 and formed Team 3D (Desire, Discipline, and Dedication). He has won three Cyberathlete Professional League tournaments with X3 and two with Team 3D. He also has several CAL-Invite championships under his belt, as well as two World Cyber Games championships.
While Miller prefers using the automatic rifles the M4 and AK-47 in CS, he is best known for his sniping skills with the AWM (mistakenly referred to as the AWP in beta versions of Counter-Strike). Near the end of March 2006, Miller became an inactive member of Team 3D, but according to Craig "Torbull" Levine, the manager of Team 3D, Miller remains a part of the team until he returns (if he chooses to do so).[1]
Techniques
Many credit Miller for popularizing the use of the 3-fingered mousing technique in video games, which involves holding the sides of your mouse with your thumb and pinky only so that you can use your middle finger to hit the mousewheel and your ring finger to hit the right mouse button, though it is unknown if he still does this.
Miller also pioneered the "quickswitch" technique. In this technique, the sniper switches to another item such as his pistol or grenades and then back to his sniper rifle. This allowed a sniper to fire his next shot with accuracy in a period of time less than would have been experienced by simply waiting without switching weapons. However, as of Counter-Strike version 1.6 this technique no longer works as Valve, the company that owns the rights to Counter-Strike, added a new delay when switching weapons to the AWM sniper rifle. After switching to it, the player has to wait a specific amount of time before they are able shoot it.
In addition to the "quickswitch" technique, Miller and other professional Counter-Strike snipers have all used the "quickscope" technique. The quickscope technique is one that a sniper clicks the scope button and almost instantly hits the fire button. The bullet that is fired is a 100% accurate "no scope". The reason this works is because the +attack button (scope function) tells the server that the sniper is scoped already even though the scope has not yet appeared on the screen. This technique is very difficult to master because the sniper has to visualize where the aiming reticule (crosshair) is at all times as it does not appear on any sniper rifle in the game. However, in versions Beta 7.1 and older, the unscoped sniper rifles did have a crosshair, and the quickscope technique was much easier to use back then.
Tournament Victories
- 1st Place Speakeasy Cyberathlete Professional League (X3)
- 1st Place 4 Year Cyberathlete Professional League (X3)
- 1st Place Cyberathlete Professional League Invite (X3)
- 1st Place World Cyber Games USA 2002 (3D)
- 1st Place Cyberathlete Professional League Winter 2002 (3D)
- 1st Place World Cyber Games USA 2003 (3D)
- 1st Place Cyber X Games USA 2003 (3D)
- 1st Place AMD ZipZoomFly Ultimate Area (3D)
- 1st Place World Cyber Games USA 2004 (3D)
- 1st Place World Cyber Games 2004 (3D)
- 1st Place Electronic Sports World Cup USA 2004 (3D)
- 1st Place DigitalLife NY (3D)
- 1st Place DigitalLife GGL AmeriCup 2005 (3D)
- 1st Place World Cyber Games USA 2005 (3D)
- 1st Place World Cyber Games 2005 (3D)
League Victories
- 1st Place Domain of Games Season 1 (CK3)
- 1st Place Domain of Games Season 2 (X3)
- 1st Place CAL-Invite Season 1 (X3)
- 1st Place CAL-Invite Season 2 (X3)
- 1st Place CAL-Invite Season 5 (3D)
- 1st Place CAL-Invite Season 7 (3D)
- Various 2nd Places in CAL-Invite (3D)
References and footnotes
- ^ Trevor Schmidt, "Moto takes over leadership of 3D", Got Frag eSports, 30 March 2006.
External links
- Big Games Hunter, a Washington Post article about Miller
- Team 3D