Back to the past - RoX CEO Igor 'Bruce' Utkin reveals who passed Solo after a fake match

Recently, the head of the ROX esports organization Igor 'Bruce' Utkin visited the TM Cast podcast on YouTube, in which he talked about the situation with Alexey 'Solo' Berezin and why the number 322 stuck to him. how much was put on the match with Alexey's participation, before who Alexey was subsequently merged. He also talked about how Solo was able to stay on the professional scene when after such things the players are sent to a lifetime ban.

The fatal match took place on June 14, 2013. Then the match against Z Rage turned out to be a dummy. Stanislav '633' Glushan, Vladimir 'yol' Basov, Andrey 'Dread' Golubev and substitute player dnq became Alexey Berezin's accomplices. The latter played instead of Ivan 'VANSKOR' Skorokhod. According to Igor Utkin, VANSKOR simply did not want to take part in such matters, and therefore not only did not take part in the match, but also left Krasnodar, where cybersportsmen were playing at that time.

Igor 'Bruce' Utkin said the following:

How did Solo burn? To surrender a match, in a team in a game it cannot be done alone. You can play badly yourself, but not the fact that you will lose. In order to lose to a weak team, and there was just such a team, at least one of your teammates should be at the same time with you. In any team there is always a person who will suggest some kind of nonsense. For fun or something. Well, someone will pick up, but anyway, they discussed it all together. Even if someone didn’t agree, even if they all didn’t agree and Solo was alone, then the others knew for sure that he was going to do it.

If you look like that, then we had VANSKOR at the bootcamp... In general, all the players there were at the bootcamp, but VANSKOR decided not to play this match. Vanya was just an atypical doter. He was much more interesting from a mental and psycho-emotional point of view, he was a pleasant person. I think this whole conversation about 322 was outside the paradigm of his values. Not only did he not play, he left Krasnodar altogether, and it seems to me that even if no one had been burned, he would have left the team or raised some fundamental question before the organization. That is, then nothing happened yet, but he had already left.

<…>

I think that Solo was not alone, that they agreed together and did not want to leave any traces, so they were not going to tell me anything. They wouldn't have told if I hadn't pinned them down

Utkin noted that the essence of the incident is not limited to the $ 100 that Solo wagered on his team's match. A much larger amount was at stake, the operation of which was helped by the manager of the squad Denis PoDoX Pestretsov.

According to Utkin, PoDoX apologized for this act and regrets, however, explained that he did not plan to help the players to the last. He was not the initiator, but when he realized that cybersportsmen could not be stopped, he decided to turn to the services of a "black bookmaker":

The same $ 100 was revealed, and the amount was far from $ 100. Then Denis PoDoX called me and apologized. The idea with 322 was muddied by the guys, but he found out about it, but he knew my position, all our plans and so on, he understood from a security point of view that no bets should be made. PoDoX was not the initiator, but when the dudes had already decided, he said that he would go to the `` black bookmaker '' who would simply accept the pencil bet. That is, there will be no traces anywhere on the network. And the amount was tens of thousands of dollars, well, maybe not tens, but somewhere around $ 15 thousand. I don’t remember the exact one, but then it was still possible to “load”.

<…>

I think that none of the players could have done an operation with that kind of money. This is PoDoX, with his poker experience and his passion for sports, he knew who it was possible to bet with so as not to advertise anything. They simply opened a conditional Pinnacle, looked at the odds, and according to this odds, the bandits signed your bet. They didn't really care what you were betting on, but then the eggs are taken from you, if anything.

<…>

I can say that PoDoX himself confessed a few years later, when he was already the manager of Virtus.pro, that not only Solo, but he himself was in the subject

The story with Solo found a strong resonance and was able to affect not only ROX themselves, but also other CIS clubs, namely Natus Vincere and Virtus.pro. The situation with Berezin was settled, but his accomplices continued to testify against Alexei. Alexander Kokhanovsky and Anton Cherepennikov, who headed NAVI and VP, respectively, came to Utkin's aid:

Both Kokhanovsky and Cherepennikov helped me in this conflict. That is, NAVI and Virtus.pro were with us then. But they didn't join in to save Solo and so on. They acted proactively to prevent this from happening to them. Everything you have done can be very ruinous simply because of someone else's stupidity. As a result, after 322, we passed it all so that only Solo was banned. It was a compromise.

<…>

We pressed[in response to the accusations]. One might even say they threatened. We had such cards, but otherwise I would not have used them. I would not have acted that way, and I certainly would not have used them like that, if I had known that they were to blame. Who they are - let's leave behind the scenes.

<…>

It seems like we have calmed both the bookmaker, and Starladder, and everyone who has risen there. And even sort of agreed to lift the ban. That is, formally it was in effect, but we have already removed it, although we have not yet announced it. And now, a certain number of hours before the announcement, an update comes at night that several more people from other bookmakers contacted Starladder and they testified against Berezin. Allegedly, he told them that he was planning to drain the match, gave them this information for a share, and now there were already thousands of dollars. And these dudes were ready to testify to the police. It turns out that they took the money and bet, and when the match hung up... That is, who buried Berezin? His own friends, whom he called and told about the drain of the match! And they took it and wrote: 'Oh-oh-oh, give our money, we are not at all in business, just Lyosha said. The match was canceled, it's not valid. '' There, everyone was ready to hand it over. Then we realized that everything was going too far and he was pinned. At the same time, we already understood then what kind of player he was and who he could grow into. After that, all our efforts were aimed at first changing the life ban for a year or two. I was super angry at Lyosha then, but he was mine. Then we systematically worked to reduce this period. Maybe not mine, not our efforts influenced, but in the end, the term was reduced from a life ban to six months

The selfish act of Alexei Berezin caused enormous damage not only to the image of the organization, but also to the wallet. After the incident, ROX lost $ 500,000 of sponsorship contracts. At the time of 2014, it was a lot of money, although now you can't call it small. Bruce called the incident "fatality" in the direction of the ROX.

According to Igor Utkin, he does not communicate with Solo to this day:

Lesha made several mistakes at once, as I see from his eyes, although we do not speak to him. We say hello, but don't talk. We have a certain insurmountable barrier. <…> For me it was a stupidity betrayal. I did not yet know the consequences of all this. <…> For me it was also a blow to ROX, to the brand itself. Everything that we have done before, everything that we have earned and what have been achieved by Starcrafters, Dotters, everything}} }} }}. <…> In the first year after 322, I estimated the damage at $ 500,000 in the form of torn sponsorship contracts. This is just what we have already signed, but because of the scandal, our money went to other organizations, and on the contrary, we went down. Basically, by and large, it was the end. <…> At some point in time, our doters definitely `` fed '' from what the Starcrafters earned. For all my time in e-sports, I suffered the most with the doters, so I have a difficult relationship with Dota. <…> This was the time when I was able to attract money. My position was stronger than that of Virtus.pro and NAVI. Well, maybe not stronger, but definitely competitive. And I did not work for borrowed money, but only for those that I earned. At that moment, when I first lost a lot of real money, and then the contracts already signed with me were also terminated... In fact, it was fatality. Maybe it was the moment when I had to stop