Esports players repeatedly talk about their thousands of hours of gameplay in Counter-Strike 2. But cadiaN reveals that many of them are being dishonest.
Who is it about? Casper Alexander Ahm Møller (30), better known as CadiaN, has been playing Counter-Strike professionally for many years. He is currently playing for the team of the Danish eSports organization “OG,” which he joined in November 2025.
Previously, CadiaN had already worked for various teams, including Astralis, Team Liquid, and Heroic. With them, he was able to achieve some successes, such as winning the ESL Pro League Season 13 with Heroic, where he made history in the Pro League with a legendary 1v4 clutch in the deciding round (for those feeling nostalgic: YouTube).
Pros brag about false numbers
What exactly does CadiaN say? In a clip on OG’s social media channels, CadiaN shares that some pro players lie when they boast about their play hours (OG via X). He says:
“I’ve been bootcamping a lot with people as well, who, when they go to bed, they dont turn off the PC and they’re stilll in game. And at some point, they’re in an interview and they’re saying, ‘Oh, I have played 22,000 hours of Counter-Strike,’ and I just think: ‘Well, that’s not really true.'”
Then CadiaN explains that they want to impress not only their fans but also the team’s coaches: “Some players just want to show their coaches how hard they work and they are kind of trying to boost their hours in ways like this to pretend hardworking and stuff.”
What does CadiaN say about the false numbers? The Danish pro doesn’t think much of it. He prefers not to distort his play hours and instead see the real numbers. This way, he can better analyze if his playtime that week played a role in his fluctuating performance, whether he perhaps played too much or too little that week, and thus performed worse.
A player who has previously spoken about his high play hours in Counter-Strike is Oleksandr “s1mple” Kostyljev. He is regarded as one of the best Counter-Strike players of all time and claims to have spent over 900 days in the shooter: The price of success in Counter-Strike: He invests more than 23,000 hours and becomes the best player in the world
