Stewie2K

Jacky "Jake" Yip (born January 7, 1998), better known as Stewie2K, is an American professional Counter-Strike: Global Offensive player for Team Liquid. He became the first North American (along with four of his teammates) to win a Valve–sponsored major in CS:GO.[1]

Stewie2K
Jacky Yip
Personal information
Born (1998-01-07) January 7, 1998
NationalityAmerican
Nickname(s)Stew
Career information
StatusActive
Current teamTeam Liquid
GamesCounter-Strike: Global Offensive
RoleRifler
Career history
2016–2018Cloud9
2018SK Gaming
2018MIBR
2019–presentTeam Liquid
Career highlights and awards

Life

Yip was born in 1998 and raised in San Francisco. He picked up Counter-Strike 1.6 from his older brother, Jason. Yip grew up with his brother and sister. His parents were often on business trips in China. Yip described his parents as the stereotypical Asian parents who disapproved of video games. His draw towards video games created a rift between him and his parents. Yip even recalls his mother saying he was going to be a failure since she lacked the understanding of the professional gaming scene. Her disdain for gaming made Yip feel that his mother had failed him and ultimately drove him out of his own home. Yip picked up and flew to LA to pursue his own interests in gaming. [2]

Yip stopped playing Counter-Strike 1.6 for a time in favor of other games such as RuneScape, MapleStory, League of Legends and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. He eventually picked up Counter-Strike 1.6 again, but would only play surf maps and mods. Yip began playing Counter-Strike: Global Offensive in the summer of 2014 after a friend gifted him a copy. He was inspired by videos of Cloud9 and would play many hours of the day. He played matchmaking for 5 months before making the switch to ESEA. During this time, Yip was falsely accused of cheating by several players further motivating him to pursue a professional CS:GO career.

Career

Spontaneously flying to Los Angeles at the age of seventeen kicked off the competitive career of a young "Stewie2K." Yip had garnered attention for his competitive PUG performances and heard rumors of a certain player's professional career soon coming to an end opening the door for Yip. He bided his time and waited for said player to relinquish his spot on the team. [3] After Sean Gares announced he was leaving Cloud9, the team decided to pick up Yip with Gares' personal recommendation. Yip joined Cloud9 on January 11, 2016 as an In-Game Leader. He signed the Cloud9 contract a few hours after his 18th birthday.[4][5] His addition was met with criticism from some veteran players. Esports journalist, Duncan "Thorin" Shields, questioned Yip's addition to the Cloud9 roster as well as Yip's abilities.[6]

Yip played for 2 years with Cloud9 and won several tournaments with the team including ESL Pro League Season 4, DreamHack Open Denver 2017 and iBUYPOWER Masters 2017. Yip won his first major with Cloud9 in January 2018 at the ELEAGUE Major: Boston 2018.[7] At the end of March, Yip left Cloud9 for SK Gaming.[8] He tried out to replace Epitacio "TACO" de Melo's spot on SK Gaming's active lineup.[9] After a three month period, Made in Brazil (MIBR) signed the SK Gaming roster to play under MIBR's name.[10]

MIBR traded Yip to Team Liquid for Epitácio "TACO" de Melo and head coach Wilton "zews" Prado in December 2018.[11]

In December 2019, Yip became the first North American CS:GO player to earn over $1,000,000 in tournament prize money after finishing runner up to Astralis in the ECS Season 8 Finals.[12] Team Liquid's CS:GO team earned $2.31 million in 2019.[13]

Notable achievements
Place Date Tournament Team Prize
1st 2020-04-12 ESL Pro League Season 11 North America Team Liquid $90,000
1st 2019-07-21 Intel Extreme Masters XIV - Chicago Team Liquid $125,000
1st 2019-07-14 BLAST Pro Series Los Angeles 2019 Team Liquid $125,000
1st 2019-07-07 Intel Grand Slam Season 2 Team Liquid $1,000,000
1st 2019-07-07 ESL One Cologne 2019 Team Liquid $125,000
1st 2019-06-23 ESL Pro League Season 9 Team Liquid $250,000
1st 2019-06-02 DreamHack Masters Dallas 2019 Team Liquid $100,000
1st 2019-05-05 IEM Sydney 2019 Team Liquid $100,000
1st 2019-01-19 iBUYPOWER Masters 2019 Team Liquid $100,000
1st 2018-08-26 ZOTAC Cup Masters 2018 Grand Finals MIBR $200,000
1st 2018-01-28 ELEAGUE Major: Boston 2018 Cloud9 $500,000
1st 2017-11-11 iBUYPOWER Masters 2017 Cloud9 $50,000
1st 2017-10-20 DreamHack Open Denver 2017 Cloud9 $50,000
1st 2016-10-30 ESL Pro League Season 4 Cloud9 $200,000
gollark: Discord filesystem WHEN?
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gollark: <#348698124371361793>
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gollark: Annoy the NSA by programming everything in RISC-V so they find it harder to hire people to reverse-engineer it!

References
  1. Delorme, Samuel. "Cloud9 wins in double-OT to take ELEAGUE Major from FaZe Clan". ESPN. Retrieved 8 September 2019.
  2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ydxhBuUo-I
  3. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ydxhBuUo-I
  4. "Cloud9 sign Stewie2k". HLTV.org. 11 January 2016. Retrieved 22 August 2017.
  5. Nairn, Vince (3 June 2017). "Stewie2k to return to IGL spot for Cloud9". Slingshot. Retrieved 22 August 2017.
  6. Shields, Duncan (2016-11-27). "The Thorin Treatment: Everybody Loves Stewie". Dot Esports. Retrieved 29 December 2019.
  7. Erzberger, Tyler (2019-02-18). "Counter-Strike star Stewie2K wants titles, not accolades". ESPN.com. Retrieved 29 December 2019.
  8. Striker (2018-03-31). "SK CONFIRM STEWIE2K ADDITION". HLTV.org. Retrieved 29 December 2019.
  9. Villanueva, Jamie (2018-03-30). "Stewie2k leaves Cloud9 to try out for SK Gaming". Dot Esports. Retrieved 29 December 2019.
  10. Rosen, Daniel (2018-06-23). "SK Gaming roster to play under Immortals-owned MIBR brand; signed to 'what we believe to be the longest contracts in Counter-Strike'". thescoreesports.com. Retrieved 29 December 2019.
  11. Wolf, Jacob (2018-12-11). "Liquid trades TACO and zews to MIBR for Stewie2K". ESPN.com. Retrieved 29 December 2019.
  12. Kulkarni, Shreyas (5 December 2019). "Stewie2K becomes first NA CSGO player to reach $1 million in prizes". TalkEsport. Retrieved 29 December 2019.
  13. Hitt, Kevin (2019-12-25). "Top 10 Esports Teams of 2019 by Total Prize Winnings". The Esports Observer. Retrieved 29 December 2019.
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