Big Games Hunter

"To many players, especially CS players, Ksharp is a legend," adds Trevor Schmidt. "He's the epitome of what people think of as a professional gamer." Schmidt, 24, founded Gotfrag.com, the ESPN.com of e-sports, three years ago. It's a must-click site for all hard-core players, pro or not, getting about 14 million page views per month, with "premium members" paying $5 a month to read articles. Miller checks out the site several times a day, and he's often written about on it. "If you consider the whole history of CS, Ksharp has the most impressive rsum," says Schmidt. "He's got the most number of wins, for one, and to stay in such a high level all these years -- well, you've got to give him credit for that."

In spring 2002, Miller became the first member of Team 3D (short for desire, discipline, dedication). It's a six-member CS team, one more than needed to play, in case a member gets sick or can't miss class.

The team is an eclectic mix.

There's Josh "Dominator" Sievers, a 21-year-old junior at Iowa State University who is the team's morale booster; he gets so heated at tournaments that he's been known to break a mouse or two. Sal "Volcano" Garozzo, the baby of the bunch, is a 19-year-old sophomore at Manhattan College. Ronald "Rambo" Kim, 21, is from Dallas; he's the quiet, reserved guy. Griffin "Shaguar" Benger, a 20-year-old from Toronto, and 21-year-old Method are the newest members of the team.

Method is the clown of the team, though he doesn't mean to be. He's a fantastic CS player, especially expert with the virtual AK47. But outside of playing CS, the other team members joke, he's lost, confused, just out of it.

"I'm here, I'm here," Method finally says into his little microphone. It's about 7:15. "Someone stole my mouse pad."

The team members laugh out loud, each into his own little microphone.

Craig Levine formed Team 3D when he was a 19-year-old freshman at New York University. He is Team 3D's manager-secretary-agent-babysitter, a beefier version of Jerry Maguire. "Yeah, show me the money," Levine says with a slight Long Island accent. He knew the moment he saw Miller play CS that he had to get him on his team.

Year after year, Team 3D has won more tournaments than any other U.S. team. It's also landed more sponsors, which now include Intel, the computer-chip maker; Nvidia, a leader in graphics processors; and Sennheiser, the headphone and microphone company. Their ads appear on the official Web site, Team3d.net, which gets about 3.6 million page views a month and has about 150,000 registered users, according to Levine. On it, fans can download past competitions and watch Ksharp and the gang compete. Though Intel won't comment on how much it's paying Team 3D, company spokesman Tim Takeuchi says Intel pays the bulk of the expenses to fly team members business class to Rio de Janeiro, Seoul and Istanbul, put them up in hotels and feed them.

Thirty minutes into the scrimmage, Team 3D is playing against Team TEC, another U.S. outfit, and the lighthearted mood turns quiet, at times intense. Right now, Team 3D has the role of the terrorists and Team TEC is the counter-terrorists.

"Get him! Get him! Get him!" Ksharp tells Method.

"It's smoke," says Rambo. "It's smoke."