Twistzz - biography, career and interesting facts

The Canadian young star

Biography

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Russel "Twistzz" Van Dulken was born on November 14, 1999 and is a Canadian CS:GO player. The 21-year-old started his career in 2015 and with Team Tectonic. After very successful years with the North American team Liquid, Russel decided to make a change in 2021 and moved to Europe.

Especially in the last three years the young Canadian developed into a top player and could celebrate some tournament successes. His total tournament winnings are estimated at around 900,000 USD.

Russel uses his social media regularly and actively. On his Twitter account he updates frequently about what's going on concerning CS:GO, while on Instagram he shows himself in a more private way. Among other things, he is also sharing pictures with his girlfriend Carolin Hanisch, who is also active in the esports sector and will accompany Twistzz on his way.

He is quite active on his Youtube and Twitch channel as well. During the winter break, he regularly uploaded FPL highlight videos and streamed on his Twitch channel with around 230,000 followers.

Twistzz - Career

Russel started his CS:GO career with the North American team Tectonic, with whom he participated in numerous B- and C-tier tournaments. He didn't really have any well-known teammates in this lineup. After only two months, the Canadian switched to SapphireKelownaDotCom, with whom he was also only under contract for a very short time.

Via AGG and KKoa, he transferred to Team SoloMid as a stand-in, with whom the future Astralis lineup was recently signed. Even though the whole team around later major winner autimatic disbanded shortly after he joined, Twistzz stayed with the organization for about a year. Together with his teammates, he moved to Misfits Gaming in January 2017 and to Liquid shortly afterwards.

This was the big breakthrough for Russel, who had only participated in two S-Tier tournaments before his move to the North American organization. As a replacement for Pimp, he was signed up by Liquid, which at that time was still far from reaching the top of the world. The big breakthrough then followed in 2019, with some great successes amongst the world's top teams. As the second longest-tenured player at Liquid, the Canadian decided to retire from the team in early 2021 and a little later for a transfer to FaZe Clan and thus Europe. Twistzz is now a respected player at the top of the world and will from now on play together with legends like rain and coldzera.

Twistzz - Achievements

Russel participated in his first S-Tier tournament in mid-2016. Together with TSM he played in the Esport Championship Series Season 1. His first major tournament participation was at ELEAGUE Boston 2018 and together with Liquid. To date, the 21-year-old has already participated in four Major events. The best result he achieved together with his team was at the FACEIT Major: London 2018, where Liquid was only defeated by Astralis in the semifinals. While he was already able to achieve some great results together with Liquid at the end of 2018, including second places at the Esport Championship Series and the ELEAGUE CS:GO Premier, the big breakthrough came in 2019, in which Liquid was at the top of the Counter-Strike world for half a year.

In this year, the team around Russel won incredible five S-Tier tournaments and achieved numerous second places. The biggest success by far in terms of prize money was a victory at the Intel Grand Slam Season 2. Furthermore, successes at the ESL Pro League Season 9, the ESL One: Cologne 2019 and the BLAST Pro Series Los Angeles are particularly worth mentioning. In addition to the great team victories, Twistzz reached ninth place in the HLTV World Ranking 2019 and was awarded MVP at two tournaments.