CS:GO, Risk versus reward
When is it smart to go for the risky play and when should you just play safe?
Since economy is a vital part of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, sometimes it is smarter to just sit back and relax for a round so that on the following round you and the rest of your team can have a full buy, which can potentially win you the round. Sometimes, though, it is smart to try and go for that risky second round buy up or the 1v(x) clutch because it may pay off as a round won or hopefully at least you would have dealt heavy economic damage to your opponents. So when should you try to go for the risky play and when should you just save? I'll break this article up into two sections: Saving versus going for the clutch and force buying versus ecoing.
Saving versus clutching
Analysing your situation is very important when it comes to making the decision if it is smarter to give up the round and save your weapons or if you want to risk it. When evaluating the situation you need to take into account a few factors: time left/bomb timer, team economy, how many enemies are left, your map positioning, how many allies you have left and your HP.
First and foremost you have to think about whether it is realistic to (as a CT) retake the site with the time remaining as well as how close you are since if you are on the other bomb site by the time you make it to the correct site you would have little to no time to get the 1/2/3 kills AND defuse the bomb. However, sometimes it is smarter to save even if you "think" you can take a 1v3, this depends on your teams' economy. Do you really want to risk running in getting one kill and then dying or maybe getting all three but not having enough time to defuse? Also when the time pressure hits and you are not sure if you want to or can go for the clutch, keep in mind (if the scenario is for instance 1v2) even though you might only be on 35hp if you get a frag within 5-10 seconds of post plant, you have a high chance you can still take it. On the other hand if you are 20 seconds in and there are two opponents left and you have yet to get a kill, it is smarter to just back down because the odds are stacked against you and sometimes an eco round with one rifle can turn things around in your favour.
Force buying or ecoing
Sometimes a good hard eco can allow you to skip a double eco and instead use only one round to re-establish your economy, but sometimes forcing up can turn the tides against your opponents as you may force them on an eco whilst you keep your forced up weapons/picked up but this can be dangerous.
Think about this scenario in terms of money. You are down 10-7, your team has across the board around 2500$ and one player has 1700$, this will be your 2nd round loss meaning you get 1900$. This will leave your team on around 4400$ and that one player on 3600$. Yes, he can buy up but it will be a Famas, armour and a few grenades. Your opponents have a weak economy of about 1500-2500$, which means they could barely buy if they were to lose the round. You are faced with an option of making a partial buy and keeping the money at around 2500/3000$ or you force up. If you lose (when forced up) you will be forced to another eco since 3rd round loss bonus is only 2400$. If you win while forced up that will mean the player who had a Famas can upgrade and the rest of the team can just replenish the missing grenades. Though you have to keep in mind that if you lose the latter round you will be forced back to an eco or forced up pistol armour or light buy (money being between 2800-4400$).
It is fully up to you as a leader or the team as a unit to figure out which play is the smarter one, trying to go for the extra round or saving a weapon that can be used next round in order to be able to make a decent force up or maybe even the catalyst to winning the eco round. Also keeping all players with roughly the same amount of money will allow the team to fully buy up instead of having (for instance) a light buy on one or two players and full buy on three others. Sometimes as much as you think you can win a 1v3, it is smarter to sit back and regain economic confidence.
Anthony "Alphad115" Fedorov