Counter-flashing

I am a firm believer that almost every map is advantageous for the defensive side. The defenders are always far more stationary than the attackers. Obviously the offensive team must flash in order to take a site, because the defenders could be hiding anywhere, and the flashes are a must in order to buy time to find them. However, the attacking team must flash first. I believe this is one of the main aspects that separates top teams from other teams. If you think about it mathematically, the defenders always have the edge. The attacker must flash first; the defending player will then counter-flash; his oppponent will either be blind, or have to flash again, in which case the player guarding the bombsite still has another flash to throw, while the other team has none. This will also buy enough time to get a teammate on the defensive side to rotate (who has more flashes), which cancels out the usual number advantage by the attackers. Also, the offensive players give away their positions by flashing, which leaves them open to be hit directly by multiple HE nades. If a team can properly anticipate the timing of a rush and where their opponents are, they should always be blind less than the attacking team, thus giving them the upper hand. Counter-flashing is something not many young teams and inexperienced players do; all they can think about is camping in their spot and trying to headshot the entire team, which will pretty much never happen against a good team because you will be blind, and they won’t. If a team takes your site using flashes, and you die without using all of yours, you played it wrong. I consider CS just like playing poker - position is everything. You always want to act last, which is what the defending players do. In poker you always want to be in late position, preferably on the button (the dealer position) because you get to watch what everyone else does first, and then act upon it. You are given information before you act, whereas the attackers should have no information to act upon, unless you decide to be tricky and give them incorrect information.

Don’t Play Scared

I see so many teams, some of my teams included, who totally shut down when they play a team that is supposed to be better than them. They play scared. When you play scared, you bait. Baiting is what beats teams on the offensive side. If you allow an opposing player to pick, reset, pick, reset, pick reset, you are going to lose the round every time. Like I said above, they have position on you. Most likely they are going to get the first pick; your teammates need to capitalize this and frag the player. YOU CANNOT AFFORD TO NOT TRADE FRAGS. If a defender frags someone, he must be fragged in turn as soon as possible. You cannot stand there and watch your teammate get shot at. Do something - at least spam, but you should be running out and trying your hardest to kill the defensive player. Think of it as fragstealing. I bet back when you were a newbie you used to cry about getting your frags stolen. Frag stealing is teamplay. At every opportunity you have to “steal” a frag, do it. You cannot let a defender who has exposed himself get away alive, especially if he has taken out a teammate. DON’T BAIT! After that player is fragged, this should open up an entire new lane to attack from, because obviously that player was guarding it for a reason. For example, a player is AWPing middle from the defending team's spawn on inferno. You are doing a 3/2 split on A or something, and he picks one of your players middle. What do you do? You don’t just stop because you are scared, you run out there with him and try to frag the guy. He should be fragged nine times out of ten, or at least be so low that he has to fall back and then you can nade him. Now you have all of left mid to attack the site from, which counters what I wrote above regarding counter-flashing, because there are more openings than the defensive team has time or enough flashes for. Winning on the offensive side is totally dependent on your team’s ability to trade frags, or even better, getting the initial pick and capitalizing. Always remember to treat scrims like matches, and matches like scrims. The only difference is there should be no criticizing in matches, just “nice try.”

Communication

Communication on both sides is key. On the defensive side you must tell your team EVERY time you spot someone, hear a flash, hear a nade, or whatever. If you are alert enough, you can eventually figure out the location of every opponent on the map, or at least the majority of them. This is when you flank. If five attackers nade hut, and the defending inner players call it, the outside player can flank and probably take out the majority of the team. It also obviously helps tell your team when to rotate. On your opponent’s save rounds, make sure to not over-rotate, ALWAYS leave one player guarding the other bombsite. A sneak plant can give the other team an opportunity to buy on a round that they otherwise would not have; controlling the other team’s money is essential to controlling the game.

Pushes

Pushes on the defensive side are extremely useful. Although above I pretty much said the opposite, they are good for catching your opponents offguard. This works especially well against lesser experienced teams, because at best all they have done is dry runs of their strats, and as soon as you pick one player off the rest of them will fall apart. If your team has a very organized push that frequently works, I strongly recommend using it on your first gun round. It makes the other team scared; the next round they will probably waste flashes to counter your push, giving them less flashes as a whole, which I explained the importance of above. When attempting a solo push, your main goal is to catch one or two enemies sleeping, fragging them easily hopefully without using any nades and losing much health. A very common mistake made by players is to keep pushing after getting that initial frag. This is wrong. As a defensive player, you do NOT want to trade frags if you don’t have to, as it is too risky to keep pushing. When pushing, you should be falling back after that first set of frags, as if you had never decided to push at all. This way you are ensured that you do not trade frags, and it is just as though you had started the round 5v4 or 5v3, which will disrupt the other team's strategies drastically and give them almost no chance to win. If you trade frags, it opens a hole in the map, and your team loses a player. Don’t be selfish when you push, get what you came for and get out.

Training your opponents

Much like in poker, you can train your opponents to do something. If you play passively 5 rounds in a row, chances are your opponents will take note of that and try to do something to counter that. This is when you do something totally different, and play extremely aggressive. Keeping your opponents guessing is extremely advantageous. It makes them scared, which causes people to make mistakes, change their strats, and bait.

Risk assessment

Just like in everything, there are risks that you have to know when to take and when not to take. Pertaining to CS, it mainly focuses on peeking. You have to know when you should peek and when you should not peek. If there is a low risk of being fragged and a high probability of you getting a frag, then you should peek. This sounds easier than it really is, because your judgment could be off or tweaked by something the other team does. You need to be able to collect enough information via sounds, communication, and what you personally see to know if it is safe to peek or not. Obviously it is much riskier to peek from a place like the A site than it is the pit on inferno. The more opponents facing you, the less you should think about peeking. That is why communication is so important; with proper communication everyone should be able to correctly analyze on their own when to peek and when not to peek, leading to successful site holds. Just like in poker, it is more effective to bet into one opponent than into multiple opponents, because an increase in opponents increases their chances to hold something (which corresponds to the flop). Sort of like an increase in your opponents in counter-strike means an increase for you to be spotted, headshot, or whatever.