Intel Grand Slam Season 3 Opening Odds: Liquid the Odds-On Favorite

• The Third Season of the Intel Grand Slam is underway
• The winning team will walk away with $1,000,000
• Are Liquid the only team worth looking at?

The third edition of the Intel Grand Slam began at IEM Chicago in July and saw the winner of the second Grand Slam, Liquid, walk away with the first tournament in the new cycle. The Intel Grand Slam is the hardest prize to win in all of Counterstrike as it involves not only winning one tournament, but four S-Tier tournaments within a span of 10 tournaments.

The prize for the team that manages to win the Intel Grand Slam?  A cool million dollars. So far there have been two Intel Grand Slam winners, Astralis, who had the first ever Grand Slam victory in December, and Liquid, who did it pretty much immediately the Danes and did it at four straight S-Tier events concluding at ESL One Cologne in July. So with one win under their belt already, are Liquid the best bet to win back-to-back Intel Grand Slams?

Intel Grand Slam Season 3

*Odds taken on 08/05/19

Can Liquid Do the Unthinkable?

They are the undisputed number one team in the world right now and have been on an absolute tear in 2019, winning a staggering seven tournaments on the year with five being S-Tier level tournaments. Liquid are on a run right now that may go down in Counterstrike history as one of the most dominant runs by a team ever, collecting over $1.8 million in winnings since May.

They do stand the best chance of taking the Intel Grand Slam Season 3 out of any other team in Counterstrike as they have shown no signs of slowing down since they captured their first ever win at a big tournament at IEM Sydney. The only concern I would have for Liquid would be the fact that they are on a player break right now. If they come out of the break and aren’t able to reach that same level of play they were at throughout the series of tournaments they won, the Intel Grand Slam may just slip through their fingers.

Today @TeamLiquid made Counter-Strike history.

Completed the #IntelGrandSlam with 4 wins out of 4 events, bringing home the gold bars and $1,000,000 💰 @IntelGaming pic.twitter.com/ahTFM6uZMu

— ESL Counter-Strike (@ESLCS) July 7, 2019

Since Liquid won the first event of the Grand Slam they now have to win three of the next five events to complete it again and win back-to-back, a rule that was put in place after Liquid breezed through the second season. Like I said though, the only thing stopping Liquid from achieving the biggest prize in Counterstrike is the fact that they are taking a month break off of playing any big tournaments.

Every summer there is a player break and once you’re in a groove and making a serious run like the one Liquid has managed to make, there is always the fear that after taking a month off that they may slip and not perform as well as they were beforehand. Though they may be a little rusty coming off of the break, I think Liquid will still continue their dominant run in the coming tournaments and once again claim the Intel Grand Slam and another million dollars.

Pick: Liquid (-105)