Gambit continue their strong run of form, moving on to the playoffs in Malmö after an unexpected PGL Major Krakow win in July. During the break, the team said farewell to Danylo "⁠Zeus⁠" Teslenko, adding another player from Kazakhstan to bolster their ranks, looks like a good move so far seeing they finished top two in a group that featured NiP, FaZe and mousesports.

fitch admitted that he was nervous before the first game in Malmö

To hear from the new addition to the team, Bektiyar "⁠fitch⁠" Bahytov, we caught up with the 25-year-old after Gambit's game against FaZe yesterday.

Let's start with you coming into this team, a big team that just won a Major, not only that but coming into Zeus' spot. Did you feel the pressure or how did you feel when the call came up?

For real, Gambit are my friends because we know each other for like 10 years probably. It's going good and right now I'm really happy to be here, to go through the group stage and to the quarter finals. Right now, we are just going to train against whatever, whoever we are going to face. I don't know, my teammates are just crazy.

When you came into the team, what did you focus on, how did the practice go?

When we played practice, AdreN, who is our captain, he just told me like: "fitch, you are just going to aim, don't think about it, don't think about anything, just go and kill someone". I said OK, I'll do it. I did it today, I'll do it tomorrow, it's my job.

The first LAN game you had with Gambit was against mousesports and instantly, you personally and the team, had a good performance. Tell me a bit about that game, what you remember. Was there any nervousness from your side?

Yeah, of course, because when I was playing for Tengri we had a game against mousesports and we just lost 16-1. That's why I was a little nervous because... I was scared. But it goes easily because my mates help me and we won. That's all.

After that you played against NiP and that was kind of a crazy game with overtimes and everything. I just wanted to ask about the Cache game first, where they won the T side 13-2 and then you came back, but they won the overtime. Tell me about that game and the comeback, were you writing off the game mentally?

Yeah, we felt so sad and bad actually, that was really hard to play, the CT side. We were hiding in sites, not pushing... we did nothing to win the rounds. And we just go to the T side, AdreN says like: "Guys, we can do it. Just cheer up and go ahead. Don't worry, don't be scared". And we came back, but we just lost in overtime, which was sad.

In the end, it came down to the last map that was Train that you lost, what went wrong on the last map?

The wrong thing was our CT side, we lost a lot of clutch rounds. And it was about me because I was playing on A site, I did a lot of mistakes, wrong moves, wrong flashes, wrong nades and I was dying all game. That is why we lost CT side and it was really hard to play NiP on the T side. They are really good on Train, on CT side, whatever. They are NiP, that's it.

The game you played now was against FaZe, the first map was Mirage and it seemed like you had the chances to close out the first map, but some things happened, they had some crazy rounds, one of them was the pistol round with olofmeister. Just walk me through that round a bit, what happened and how did you feel after it?

Yeah, we started well actually, the first half was 9-6, we started pistol round on the A site and olofmeister just did some magic, he just pushed me in jungle, that was really scary.

It's the best map for FaZe Clan, Mirage, everyone knows that. We knew that we are going to lose or something, because I felt it before. I don't know, it's probably not our best map, not best T side map, that's why we lost.

Let's touch on the Nuke game, the last map you played here, especially HObbit playing pretty well. What do you remember from there and what was the key part of winning that map and qualifying for the playoffs?

The key was... AdreN said "I don't want to be the captain, I'm just going to be quiet, you do whatever you want" and HObbit then said like: "OK guys, I'm just gonna get them all. Just wait, just hold, I'll pick them all." So we let him do whatever he wanted, we were just waiting and started to win round per round. A lot of clutch rounds... Anyway, HObbit is MVP, he did a lot of things, he brought us to the quarter finals like a big brother.

How does it feel moving on to the big stage, on to the playoffs tomorrow, in such a short span of time?

I'm feeling really happy, it's the biggest tournament I have ever played, it's really crazy, I don't know who we are going to play tomorrow so I hope we are going to do it, go through the quarter finals to play on further.