Markus “Kjaerbye” Kjærbye on Twitter has announced his retirement from CSGO.
The 23-year-old Dane left a seven-year illustrious career in CSGO behind, during which he represented several highly-regarded organizations such as Astralis, North, and FaZe Clan. His longest and the most successful stint was under Astralis, whom he played for across 2016-18 and notably won the ELEAGUE Major 2017 held in Atlanta, USA.
Markus rose to prominence in the second half of 2016 in December as one of the main engines in Astralis’ success at the Major in Atlanta (mentioned above) where he went on to become the youngest player to achieve the feat. Soon later, he left Astralis to join North, with whom he won the DreamHack Masters Stockholm in 2018 against his then ex-teammates from Astralis in the Grand Finale alongside two other tournaments hosted by the same organizer in that very year.
After parting ways with North in early 2020, Kjaerbye was picked up by FaZe Clan for their international squad to replace Aurimas “Bymas” Pipiras on the roster, initially vacated by Olof “olofmeister” Kajbjer. With just the IEM XIV: Europe trophy in the bag, FaZe struggled to wield results which saw Kjaerbye move to the bench making way for Russel “Twistzz” Van Dulken.
Still, under FaZe, Kjaerbye decided to step in for HYENAS, a Danish roster where he reunited with his former teammates from North, Philip “aizy” Aistrup and Nicklas “gade” Gade only to yet again step down from the roster citing “lack of determination to compete”. During his time at Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, HLTV.org consecutively voted him as the best player from across 2016-17 (16th best in 2016 & 15th best in 2017).
In his farewell tweet, Markus added,
The time has come for me to say goodbye to gaming as a professional Counter-Strike player. It is with a heavy heart I am writing this, but as of right now, I have no longer the hunger and determination it requires to compete on top level. This game has been a huge part of my life for the past 10 years, and I feel this is the time for me to look for new horizons and opportunities. Future work can be both inside and outside the game. Time will tell.
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