Early Game

Knowing is half the battle

If you let the enemy surprise you, you will die a horrible death every single round. You may not know exactly where your enemies are at all times, but you can always maintain a general idea of where to expect to encounter them.

It all starts at the beginning of each round. You know the opposing team starts at its spawn. With the exception of unique maps like as_oilrig, you can almost always divide the map into two halves. The primary engagement points lie where the two halves meet. These are the points on the map where the Terrorists (Ts) and the Counter-Terrorists (CTs) will almost always first run into each other.

Take the map de_dust for example. As soon as the round begins, the Ts have the option of going either through the H or through the tunnel to reach the CT side. The first engagement in the H often occurs right when the Ts are able to see the first corridor on the left; a rushing CT will appear in that corridor just after it comes into view.

The H in de_dust

Charging CTs will appear there.

You will eventually learn these initial engagement points after playing a map long enough, by then you'll always be ready for the first meeting (unless there's a strafe jumper on the opposite team). Once you get confident enough you can even start tossing preemptive Flashbangs or HE grenades around corners, over walls, through doors, etc..

Also, train yourself to buy your equipment at the beginning of each round quickly, so you're ready to run with your knife out as soon as you're allowed to move. Slow buyers lose valuable time and allow the enemy to get in better positions.

Stick together

You will almost always want to move with your teammates. If you get into a fight, your teammates will help you kill enemies faster, and they'll also give enemies more targets to shoot at besides yourself. If your opponents are all shooting at your teammates, take that free second to do as much damage as you can since all those guns will soon be pointing at you if you don't take them out quickly.

Once in a while you may end up with a gung-ho partner that insists on charging out whenever possible. When he makes his move, you have to immediately decide whether or not to go with him. If you're outnumbered by only one or two, your teammate will surely die, but you may be able to pick up a kill or two before dying or pulling back with whatever health you have left. You may even win the battle if your teammate managed to kill one of the enemies before dying. If you're greatly outnumbered, you get to spend the next four and a half minutes telling your teammate when not to rush.

You can put together a sizeable rush if you can get enough players to charge together, and if you're the leading scorer on the team, you'll probably be the gung-ho guy leading the rush.

Charge left!

Storm the Front!

Rushing works fairly well on public servers, but a somewhat organized defending team can decimate a rush with solid defensive positions and a few well-placed grenades.